


Wilderness of Freedom

by Blue Rose (Grovehove)



Category: NCIS, Supernatural, The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: 2021 Every Fandom Reverse Bang, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Mild Horror, Triad relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:00:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28967970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grovehove/pseuds/Blue%20Rose
Summary: Tony gently pushed on the door, and it slowly moved inwards, allowing a glimpse of the darkened apartment. No need for his lock picking kit then. Adrenaline pulsed through his body but he forced down his fear for Naomi.One hand reached for his weapon, freeing it smoothly and holding it tucked into his side whilst the other instinctively skimmed his belt for his blessed silver knife.He stood there listening for a long moment and then he opened up the guide senses the ones he shouldn’t have because he wasn’t online damn it, for a quick scan and shut them down again fast. There was no empathetic signature.But Tony didn’t relax his vigilance. That just meant there was nothing human in the room.
Relationships: Anthony DiNozzo/Blair Sandburg, Anthony DiNozzo/Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg, Jethro Gibbs/Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie
Comments: 31
Kudos: 220
Collections: Every Fandom Reverse Bang 2020





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Red_Pink_Dots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Pink_Dots/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Art for Wilderness of Freedom by Blue Rose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28792461) by [Red_Pink_Dots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Pink_Dots/pseuds/Red_Pink_Dots). 
  * Inspired by [Art for Wilderness of Freedom by Blue Rose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28792461) by [Red_Pink_Dots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Pink_Dots/pseuds/Red_Pink_Dots). 



> This story is inspired by the amazing original artwork from the fabulous Red_Pink_Dots for the Every Fandom Reverse Bang 2020. How could I resist? A fusion of The Sentinel, and NCIS in a Supernatural AU.  
> Then I was gifted with three more gorgeous perfect pieces of artwork for it. One for each of those gorgeous men. I only hope the story lives up to this awesome artwork. 
> 
> Please check Red_Pink_Dots work out on the link below  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/28792461 
> 
> Thank you to Red_Pink_Dots for making this collaboration a joy and such fun. And thank you to the mods for all their hard work running this challenge.
> 
> Please note: Canon is toyed with like a playful kitten. Timelines do not exist. I have warned for graphic violence for safety, but really its not even at the level of a Supernatural episode.
> 
> The Title comes from the Ted Hughes poem "The Jaguar"

_His stride is wildernesses of Freedom_

_The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel_

_Over the cage floor the horizon comes_

From “The Jaguar” by Ted Hughes

Prologue

Special Agent Jethro Leroy Gibbs had just finished his third coffee that morning when his desk phone rang. His Guide had been insistent on reducing his caffeine intake. Some rubbish about balancing his health and wellbeing as a Sentinel.   
  
He refused to acknowledge that the third cup might have been a step too far after the detox diet Mac had initiated within days of their bonding. She had been appalled at the amount of caffeine and red meat he consumed when he wasn’t eating junk food at his desk. It was bad enough that he had to cut back on his cowboy steaks and eat damn rabbit food instead but there wasn’t a snowballs’ chance in hell that he was giving up coffee altogether, especially when he was at work.  
  
Coffee ensured that he was calm enough and had something to hold so that he didn’t give into his regular impulse to break a few heads.

The sound of the phone ringing was getting annoying. It was an external line. He had trained his team to answer them via the judicious use of glares and grunts, but that didn’t work with his Guide. If Mac was feeling generous when she was in the bull pen, then she would send him an amused look out of those beautiful eyes and answer the thing for him.  
  
They all knew he hated dealing with other Agencies or LEOs. He didn’t have the patience to deal with their political bullshit when he was working a case. He didn’t have the patience for it when he wasn’t working a case. When a case crossed his desk, it was his. NCIS had jurisdiction and god help anyone who tried to argue with this territorial Sentinel.

But this time he was alone in the pumpkin orange bull pen. His SFA Kate Todd was with Abby Sciuto in forensics, their tech guy Probie Tim McGee was on leave and his Guide was at a deposition.

Gibbs glared at the damn phone. He was tempted to ignore the incessant ring just to live up to the second B for bastard in his surname, but they had been working cold cases for a week. He was getting antsy about being in the office. 

If Mac had been there, she would have rolled her eyes at his grumpy one-word response. But hell, if they had his direct line then they knew who he was, what he did and where he worked, he didn’t need to repeat it.

“Yeah” he barked.

The snort of masculine laughter was familiar. “I was gonna say you never change Gunny but that would be a lie. I hear you finally got yourself a Guide. “

Gibbs lips twitched for a second, but his scowl grew as the other Sentinel continued “Congratulations are in order. A Guide chose you even if she is a Marine Lt Colonel in JAG.”

Ellison’s laughter was unrestrained, he knew exactly what Gibbs thought about Officers and Lawyers. 

“Are you disrespecting my Guide Ellison?” the NCIS Agent growled without amusement.

“Wouldn’t dream of it you humorless Jarhead. Just yanking your chain. Now you have one that is!” Ellison answered cheerfully.

“You have five seconds to tell me what you want” Gibbs voice was hard. “Some of us actually work for a living.”

The temptation was almost too much for Jim, but he needed Gibbs's help, and the bastard would slam the phone down on him if he gave into it. The next time they shared cowboy steaks though, the guy was fair game. And hopefully he would get to finally meet the Gibbs wrangler extraordinaire, the fabled Lt Col. Sarah Mackenzie.

Ellison’s voice lost any amusement “I need your assistance Sentinel” there was an emphasis on the last word that only a fellow sentinel would hear. “I have an official request for you to come to Cascade to assist with an investigation. Petty Officer Sean Murray was reported missing by his relatives. He was home on leave. We need NCIS input on the case”.

“I don’t do input Ellison, this falls under NCIS jurisdiction. It’s my case now. I need everything you can give me” but before Gibbs could finish Ellison’s frustrated irritation came through loud and clear “I said I need your assistance Sentinel, there has been more than one disappearance. Not all military. We need to work this together” Again there was that strange emphasis on the word Sentinel which was echoed on the word need. Gibbs raised his eyebrows as he made the connection.

Sentinels, Sentinels were disappearing, and Ellison wanted to keep it under the radar of the Guide Initiative. What the hell was going on in Cascade? He made his mind up on the spot.

“48 hours Ellison and I’ll be there with my team”.

Ellison cut off the call on his burner phone with a relieved sigh. He could feel the tension headache that he had carried for days ease. He had made the call from his Captain’s office because he didn’t want to involve his teammates in this yet. He wasn’t going to use any equipment that could officially be traced back to the department or himself. It was bad enough he had to risk Simon, but Simon would kick his ass, Sentinel, or no Sentinel, if he had tried to leave him out of this mess.

Besides, they couldn’t afford any leaks, inadvertent or not before they had some concrete evidence that the Guide Initiative would not be able to bury for the greater good.

There had been too many murmurs from reputable sources of these kind of cases disappearing into the black secretive hole that was the Initiative with no resolution. He owed it to those missing Sentinels to deal with this and get closure for their relatives.

“Gibbs is on board with this Simon, means we’ll have another Sentinel under the pretext of inviting NCIS to join the investigation without it being obvious that it’s an informal hunt.”

Banks was filling his coffee cup from the machine by his desk as he listened with interest. He looked over his shoulder at his friend and detective, the pleased expression on his face obvious.

“Great news Jim. We need to keep a lid on this if possible. We’ll keep this between us for now. I know our guys can be trusted but they are safer out of it until we get some answers.”

Ellison nodded in agreement as he turned to leave the Captain’s office. He had preparations to make now that Team Gibbs were on their way.

Then he came to a complete stop as he caught a flicker of something in the corner of his eye.

What the hell? He rubbed at his eyes wearily. He must be more tired than he realized.

He was too invested in the case, but hell how could he not be, the disappearance of a fellow sentinel and military one at that. Not the first one. The latest in a line of cases over the last 2 years. Cases that had somehow been taken over by the Initiative and nothing had been heard about them since. Hiding behind their damn rules and regulations. Removing evidence and information because it might be a risk to their sacred reputation and protocols.

They had been lucky they had caught this case. Not so lucky for Petty Officer Murray. The guy was a recently online but unregistered Sentinel, and it was only a chance remark by his distraught mother that had clued the detective in. The kid kept it under wraps, so as not to get caught up in the Initiative’s processes before he was ready.  
  
Jim was going to do everything in his power to get that kid back safely. This case was in his jurisdiction if that bastard Gibbs didn’t try to steal it off him. Although at least it wouldn’t be the damned Guide Initiative. NCIS might have more luck against the Initiative than a Local PD but he wouldn’t bet on it.

“Jim?” Simon queried with faint concern. Ellison barked a laugh at the ridiculous image in his head. “Just tired I guess Simon; honestly thought I saw you with long blonde hair for a second. Really need some down time.”

Banks raised his eyebrows quizzically, fond exasperation on his face “Damn, you need to sleep. Make sure you leave at a decent time today” he ordered gruffly. Ellison just waved his hand in dismissal as he went back to his desk.

He didn’t see the strange blue glow in the Captain’s eyes or the same blue glow surrounding his hands when he raised his coffee cup in a mocking salute. The smirk on his mouth radiated satisfaction.


	2. Chapter 1

Gibbs was going through his fellow Sentinel’s apartment with pinpoint focus, using sight, smell, and taste mainly to try to get some idea of what had happened to Ellison. He was drawing heavily on the power of his Guide to buffer him from any extraneous sensations. If he left any lingering sense traces for the territorial other Sentinel to find, well too bad, the priority was finding the guy alive.

Kate followed behind documenting everything Gibbs mentioned both in writing and with a recorder. She had learnt the hard way about the dangers of being distracted when he was using his skills. They had lost a case. Gibbs had not been pleased. He had lived up to the second B in his name. 

Now even she could see that her boss was utterly and coldly furious. His mood had deteriorated after his meeting with Cascade PD. The monosyllabic grunts were returning after Lt Col. Mackenzie had worked so hard to loosen him up. Kate damn well didn’t need any guide gifts to see the rage in Gibbs's eyes. But she did miss the guilt.

Mac had picked up on that immediately and she was going to deal with that when they were somewhere private, as loudly and repeated as many times as her knucklehead of a Sentinel needed it. He shot her a swift glance as if he felt her fond exasperation and his lips twitched for a second before he went back to work clearing the scene.

He knew the guilt was irrational and he would handle Mac later. There was a nagging thought that somehow, he was missing the obvious because some bastard was playing games with Sentinels lives.

The Captain of Major Crimes, Simon Banks didn’t know that Ellison has reached out to NCIS about the missing Petty Officer Murray case that had brought Gibbs’ team to Cascade.  
  
It was disconcerting to say the least. What was even worse was the fact Jim Ellison had gone missing whilst working on the Murray missing persons case. Ellison had been missing for over two weeks, and an actual eleven days before the damn phone call to the NCIS office.

Ellison’s teammates in Major Crimes had been concentrating most of their efforts on finding their Lieutenant. As they had little to go on, the prevailing thinking was that Ellison has found out something about Murray’s disappearance.  
The phone call from their missing detective disturbed the Captain as much as it did Gibbs. It was seriously messed up. Once they had confirmed that the Petty Officer was actually missing, it had taken all of Mac’s persuasive skills to get Banks to agree not to contact the Guide Initiative on behalf of Ellison on the pretext that the Petty Officer Murray case should be dealt with by NCIS.  
  
Sometimes the fact she was a JAG lawyer worked in their favor. But Gibbs knew better than to voice that aloud. They conveniently forgot to tell the Captain that the PO was also a new Sentinel. Banks would have been duty bound to report it if he knew. NCIS would always have more leeway regarding their cases from the GI because they trod a fine line with the Military. The missing Sentinel was actually a sailor.

Mac had just called a break so as not to stress out his senses when they all heard the insistent main entry buzzer. The building’s official entry system was voice activated only but when they arrived at the Sentinel’s apartment, Kate had switched on the monitor for Ellison’s own unofficial camera system that started in the entry way and included both the stairs and the elevators to all floors.

Gibbs approved of the Sentinel territorial security imperative that had driven the installation. Though knowing Ellison, his years as both a Ranger and a cop had contributed to it. He ignored Mac's less than subtle muttering about blessed protector paranoia.

Mac answered the relentless buzzer, and they heard the guy ask for entry to go to 297. Mac raised an eyebrow at her Sentinel, and he nodded abruptly. She let the guy in, and they watched as he moved gracefully up the staircase, bypassing the elevator.

“297 is on this level, right?” Mac queried, and Kate dropped her eyes to her notes before responding. “Yes, it’s the apartment a few doors away that has been temporarily sublet to a Naomi Sandburg”.

Gibbs ignored her; he was focused on his guide. She was staring at the image of the guy as he mounted the stairs with that small frown on her face that meant something was nagging at her.

“Mac, what’s bothering you?” Gibbs interrupted her thoughts, but she didn’t take her eyes off the small monitor. “Sandburg, I know that name from somewhere” she muttered, just loud enough for her Sentinel to hear.

Kate interrupted that train of thought with drawled sarcasm “Well would you look at that, a delivery guy who doesn’t have anything to deliver.”

  
Tony lent on the door buzzer for the apartment block in Prospect Avenue until an impatient female voice echoed through the system.

“Sorry Ma’am got a delivery for 297, need a signature for it, you willing to sign for it?” he asked with the usual delivery guy indifference. The cap and sunglasses obscured his face especially when he was looking down, but he was glad that the door entry system had no camera because he knew that fake chipper tone was at odds with the grim exhausted expression on his face. He didn’t want to deal with people right now. He didn’t have the energy for it.

Right on cue as expected, he was buzzed through. No one wanted to be a good neighbor these days. Not if it cost them any effort, he thought cynically.

He had rid himself of the slicked back hair, the Tom Ford suit and beautiful Ferragamo shoes when he left Philly. Shedding that persona as thoroughly as a snake with its skin and with the same lack of regret.  
Antonio DiNozzo jr had done his job perfectly, now it was time to get back to Tony Paddington.

Practical comfort took the place of expensive suits. Naomi was just as likely to drag him out on some random salt and burn as feed him chicken soup in her version of care. So he was back in jeans, a green turtleneck, his favorite brown leather walking boots and leather jacket, though of course they were all still designer.

The radically different appearance would also confuse anyone trying to find DiNozzo. Not that he thought there would be, but situational hyper-awareness was as instinctive as breathing these days. The only thing he hadn’t changed was his Omega Seamaster watch. It had been a gift from Blair and Naomi when he had graduated. He never took it off.

His thoughts distracted him from the trudge up the stairs. He was not going to use an elevator in a building he hadn’t already scoped out.

The last message from Don Macaluso rang through his mind “Leave Philly and don’t come back Antonio. There will be a bounty on your head within my city but only my city. For both our sakes stay away mio figlio.”

His Captain had told him to get out of town when the clean-up started, and that Feeb asshole Special Agent Tobias Fornell had facilitated his escape route. The FBI had kept it on a need-to-know basis, and Fornell had decided no one in his Police Department needed to know where their most successful undercover cop was going to be until the court appearances.

Tony had decided that no one else was to be informed either. To paraphrase Alan Arkin in Catch-22, It wasn’t paranoia when they were really out to get you.

After a great deal of hounding by the senior FBI agent in charge, he had at least accepted the burner phone to Fornell’s relief. “Use it if you need help DiNutso” the Agent had ordered gruffly. Tony was too tired to take the bait about his name and just popped the thing in his suit jacket. At his first stop for gas, he had memorized the one contact number on the cell and thrown the damn thing in the rest room waste disposal. He made sure it was switched off though. Burner phone or not, he wasn’t taking any chances. He needed to be untraceable and even if he was a cop, there was no way in hell he take any Fed equipment near Naomi or Blair. 

Two years immersed in the persona of the charming sociopath Antonio DiNozzo jr. Only son of the late conman and embezzler Antonio DiNozzo Snr, who had died in prison years ago. A fact which he had ruthlessly used to ease his path into the Family, rising through the ranks to get close to the Don himself.

He felt adrift. He needed to rest. The satisfaction of the take-down was blunted by his inability to see what was going to happen next. For two years he had only one focus, one objective. He hadn’t been separated from his chosen family like this since they had first met. And for two years his existence had been dedicated to that separation, to being immersed in a false family.

He needed to re-establish himself as Tony Paddington. He needed to reconnect with his family, his proper family. He needed to figure out what he wanted to do now. And a major part of that was finding a way to get Blair to see reason or at least talk to him again. Living without him, with no contact, had left a gaping void where his heart should have been.

He had taken the undercover job because he knew he would weaken, give in to Blair’s pain and his own. That would have been titanic levels of bad because Blair was an online guide. Tony was latent and even worse he was a latent guide. They had no future together other than as family. And even that depended on how much of an asshole his future Sentinel was likely to be.  
  
It wasn’t as if Blair didn’t know that he had a Sentinel. They had both caught glimpses of and felt that elusive jaguar on the psionic plain for years. Blair just hadn’t met the guy yet. The Sentinel was just as elusive as his spirit guide. 

Tony had tried to be the practical one. Better the pain of separation now, than being forced out of Blair’s life when he bonded. Of course, that stubborn little shit disagreed with him. Blair hadn’t cared about the so-called established custom that dictated a bond only had room for one Sentinel and one Guide. Blair had even had the temerity to quote Morticia Adams at him “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” Manipulative and stubborn little shit. He had mocked Tony enough over the years for using film quotes to reinforce his meaning.

But the hard truth was that Tony was latent. He still hadn’t come online, whilst Blair had come into his guide gifts just after he and his Mom had rescued Tony. What Blair refused to acknowledge was that even if Tony did finally come online, and twenty-six was edging towards the age at which most Latents gave up hoping for it to happen, he was going to be another guide. A guide.

What did it matter if Blair could drag him off to the psionic plane? Another Blair Sandburg ass kick to conventional normality because that was supposed to be a big no-no for Latents. It just didn’t happen for Latents. Ever. The arrival of a spirit animal meant that a latent had come online, and therefore could then travel to that insane blue ethereal jungle.  
  
But Blair was talented. His gifts were many and varied, not least his genius level intellect. Blair had walked the path; he was a fully-fledged Shaman. Blair was bloody amazing and whoever his Sentinel was, if they didn’t recognise that fact, then Tony was going be kicking said Sentinel’s ass. Repeatedly. Bugger a shovel talk, Tony would use an industrial backhoe on the douche. 

So just because Blair could drag him to the spirit world, it didn’t mean Tony would ever come online. Fine, there were indications. His people skills were an asset to his job, he could tell when people were lying to him or dangerous. He could pick up the mood in a room in seconds and adapt himself like a chameleon to fit in. And thus, his undercover skills were formed.  
  
But his spirit guide had still not made an appearance, therefore he was not online. There was no way round that fact. 

Naomi. He needed Naomi. Naomi would tell him that he had to realign his chakra. Naomi would serve him chicken soup and burn sage over his head until he coughed. Naomi would scold him outrageously for working for the Man and then test him on his Latin. Naomi would tell him to remember who he was. Naomi would welcome him home.

Antony DiNozzo jr had been left behind in that hotel room in Hawaii at the tender age of 12, lost to fear, grief, and insecurity with the knowledge his own father had left him behind after a less than successful confidence trick. The man had forgotten him as if he were nothing. Naomi and Blair had come riding to the rescue and he had become Tony Paddington instead. God, he had missed them both so much.

He fully intended to get his Blair back, to grovel his apologies until Blair forgave him. And then make him see reason. He couldn’t lose him again. For two years he had cut himself off from Blair, and he could not do it again. Even if he had found his Sentinel already, Tony didn’t care. He had to be part of Blair’s life somehow. He would get Blair back. Blair would tell him to meditate to get back in balance and stop eating so much junk food. Blair would check the strength on the empathic shields he himself had helped Tony build to block any casual survey. Tony didn’t think Latent was in Blair’s vocabulary when it came to him, because he made the impossible possible without a blink.  
  
Blair had registered with the Guide Initiative because he was too powerful not too. He had refused a Sentinel search. He told them in no uncertain terms that he was too powerful for any Sentinel in their register and that he would know his own Sentinel on sight. He didn’t need them. That had not gone down well with the Initiative but there was nothing they could really do about it.  
But Blair had been very, very careful to keep Tony away from them. Blair had taught him everything he needed to know about coming online. Naomi had taught the two of them how to meditate since they were kids. 

Blair would drag him to the spirit plane and massage his temples while they watched Blair’s wolf roll around like a puppy, making chirping noises at any bird in the trees or try to stalk that elusive Jaguar in the blue jungle. Blair would smack him in his big dumb face for his two-year isolation and then kiss him senseless. Until Tony would remember that according to the Guide Initiative, they were not supposed to be together. 

He needed Naomi and Blair. Naomi would forgive him for his absence and lack of contact, Blair not so much. Naomi was all about detaching with love. Blair not so much.

They had all moved to Cascade when Blair had decided to take his PhD there. He and Tony had fought about Tony taking the job in Philly. But Tony insisted because he knew that his absence would allow Blair to finally search for his Sentinel properly. Blair was too stubborn to do it whilst Tony was there. Blair was his own worst enemy sometimes.

Tony would make his peace with Blair once he had seen Naomi. He had been with her longer that with his birth mother. As far as Tony was concerned, she was the closest thing to a mother he had.

And he needed her. He needed her uncomplicated affection and undemanding acceptance after two years of following rigid rules, two years of paranoia, and god damn it, two years of being Antonio DiNozzo, part of the Michele Macaluso Crime Family. Two confused, heart-breaking years of admiring the very guy he was there to take down because he hit all of Tony’s faulty Daddy buttons. What the hell did it say about DiNozzo Snr that a Mafia Don was better father material? God he was a mess.

When Tony finally got to Naomi’s door, there was no answer to his knocking. It had been an impulsive decision to come to see her in person and not ring her with his ETA. He wanted to see the way her eyes lit up and that wide smile she always gave her boys when she wasn't expecting them.  
  
He needed to get his head on straight. The last two years had been intense. Naomi and Blair had been his go to therapists and support system since he was twelve years old. But Blair was not an option right now. His mind shied away from the reason. He would deal with that later. Much later.

Instinct and experience took over as Tony scanned Naomi’s front door. The protection sigils were in the usual places and didn’t look damaged. But there were faint scratches near the lock, and the nearly invisible strand of Naomi’s curly dark hair stretched between the door and the frame had snapped. The hair on the back of Tony’s neck began to rise in time with the adrenaline rush in his body.

Tony gently pushed on the door, and it slowly moved inwards, allowing a glimpse of the darkened apartment. No need for his lock picking kit then. One hand reached for his weapon, freeing it smoothly and holding it tucked into his side and the other skimmed his belt for his blessed silver knife. He stood there listening. He opened the guide senses that he shouldn’t have because he wasn’t online damn it, for a quick scan and shut them down again fast. There was no empathetic signature.

But Tony didn’t relax his vigilance. That only meant there was nothing human in the room.

A quick glance at the hardwood floor confirmed that the faint salt line was unbroken which was not the comfort that it should have been. Something could already be trapped inside. He had left his iron nightstick in the Mustang. He really wasn’t firing on all cylinders at the moment. Thankfully as per usual Naomi had a decorative iron coal bucket and fireplace set right next to the door with a pretty jug full of holy water.

Tony holstered the gun and went for a weapon which would be more useful against a non-human. He grabbed the iron poker before he stepped carefully over the threshold, making sure not to break the salt line.

Tony did a thorough sweep of the apartment and ended up in Naomi’s small office staring in disbelief at the wall covered with newspaper cuttings about missing Sentinels that went back nearly 50 years. What the hell? What was she caught up in?

Naomi wouldn’t touch anything Sentinel related with a barge pole. She would never voluntarily put her family within reach of the GI. She was only interested in the supernatural.

Tony scanned the desk and wall with experienced eyes. It looked like she had been working on this for some time. This kind of research only meant one thing. His brain raced with the implications. What the hell kind of monster could take out actual Sentinels over that length of time?

Then a chill crept down his back that had nothing to do with any stupid ghost. Naomi’s journal was still on her desk. She always kept her journal with her. Always. She would leave Blair and him behind sooner than that bloody thing, and she had never left them behind.

For a moment irrational panic hit him and all he could think of was Blair. He had to get to Blair to make sure he was okay. Later, he could only blame his distraction for the fact they got the drop on him.

“NCIS. Armed Federal Officers. Put the poker down and your hands behind your head. Slowly”

The hard voice continued. “Mac, cover him while I cuff his hands and we’ll take this to the precinct. Banks will be champing at that damn cigar to interrogate this one. Kate, I want crime scene quality photos, especially of that wall.”   
  
Tony could hear the multiple footsteps moving behind him.

“Really, this is all a misunderstanding” Tony began to cajole as he slowly tried to turn after he had emptied his hands and raised them behind his head. He wasn’t taking any chances with a freaking trigger-happy Fed. Agent Sacks had cured him of that. Fornell had saved him from his over excited weapon carrying junior during the final raid on the Family.

But before he could continue to try to sweet talk his way out of the situation, the calm firm tones of a powerful Guide stopped him in his tracks. “Please do as my Sentinel ordered”.

Ice carved its way through his circulatory system. Fuck. He had totally missed the fact that there was a strong bonded pair in the building. He was more off his game now than when that damned Wolverine had broken his leg on the football field.

He desperately checked his own shields so that nothing leaked out. Another anomaly in the messed-up life path of Tony Paddington, the latent guide.

No one could tell he was latent unless he let his shields down, and Latents did not have shields or the ability to use them. One more weapon in Blair’s campaign to break down his resistance and convince him he wasn’t Latent anymore. The stubborn little shit. But the one immutable fact that Blair couldn’t refute was that he didn’t have a spirit animal. No spirit animal, no online guide.

Then he felt powerful hands grip his forearms and one at a time they were positioned behind his back where the hand cuffs were applied. 

Gibbs noticed the sudden spike in the suspect’s heartbeat when he heard Mac’s words. He risked a quick glance at her and found that same distracted thoughtful expression that she had worn earlier when she heard the name “Sandburg”.


	3. Chapter 2

The door to the interrogation room was flung open with a bang. Tony barely refrained from rolling his eyes but couldn’t resist opening his mouth.

“About time, I’ll have a cheeseburger with extra fries”. The silver haired Sentinel of the pair came to a full stop and stared unimpressed at Tony. “You think you are funny huh?” his deep voice dropped an octave with menace and Tony resisted the urge to shiver. Nope not happening. Not letting the Sentinel get to him. He decided to take a calculated risk.

His lips quirked, and his eyes lit up with mischief as he merely settled back in his chair, with his feet up on the table “I think I’m adorable” he offered with a seductive smile as he turned his attention to the beautiful Guide who was standing just to the side of the growly Sentinel who had stormed through the door.

Tony couldn’t afford for the bonded pair to be aware of his latent status, he and Blair had practiced enough over the years to ensure that their shields were strong enough to be unbreachable to even high-level bonded pairs. But every little distraction helped. Flirting with a bonded Guide should outrage the Sentinel. It also helped that neither of them would ever believe another guide, latent or not would do something like that. It was outside all normal propriety.   
God bless the prudish GI rule book. 

The Guide laughed in surprise, as the Sentinel began a low-level growling that made him sound like a disgruntled bear. For a second Tony wondered if that’s what the guy’s spirit animal was. He’d just bet it was a grizzly!

If the pair of them didn’t introduce themselves soon, he would start calling the sentinel Grizzly Adams. Just to piss him off even more. 

As Tony’s own spirit animal was playing hide and seek, seemingly permanently, he had developed an interest in spirit guides in general and guessing who belonged to which spirit animal when he was Sentinel and Guide watching. He had even managed to get Blair to play along a few times, especially when he had successful guessed Blair's own wolf before he had made his first appearance. Tony had named him Mooney much to the wolf’s amusement and Blair’s annoyance. But Blair had given in when Mooney had proved resistant to answering to anything else.

Tony presumed the woman was the Sentinel’s bonded Guide, though he hadn’t been introduced yet. Rude! Also he didn’t think there would be any other reason for a Marine Officer to meekly follow a Navy Cop into a police interrogation.  
The suspected Guide followed more sedately behind the Sentinel and sent him a sympathetic smile. Tony was amused. Good Guide Big Bad Sentinel, as old as the good cop, bad cop routine.

Did she think he didn’t know a marine uniform when he saw one! Tony would bet Blair’s Chevy Corvair that she was more badass than the stern silver haired Sentinel. No way would he ever bet his own baby on anything. His green 1965 Mustang would never be put in danger like that.

Right there and then Tony decided to get some entertainment out of the situation. He was not a fan of self-righteous, arrogant cops especially when they were Sentinels, especially when they were Military cops and Sentinels, so hell yeah he was going to enjoy this. Someone was gonna pay for this shit show and snarly Sentinel had just offered himself up.

He wasn’t going to think about Naomi yet. He needed to focus on getting out of this stupid situation first. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to make the arrogant bastard regret his life choices whilst he did it. He would have to keep an eye on that Guide though. He knew from experience just how sneaky they could be.

“Take your damn feet off the table” the silver haired Sentinel growled. Tony just slowly smiled at him and shifted his legs to a more comfortable position on said table. The Sentinel loomed menacingly over him but a soft murmured word from his Guide made him move back. His frustration was almost a fourth presence in the room.

Obviously irate the Sentinel swiped at his legs and pushed them off the table. Ah the threatening portion of the interrogation was about to begin. Tony’s gut tightened with anticipation. But instead, the brown-haired Guide slid smoothly in a chair beside the Sentinel. Her hand rested for a moment on her Sentinel’s forearm.

Aw the big guy needed some calming guide mojo. Tony’s satisfaction levels increased at the thought he was getting to the Sentinel bastard. So, he might have a slight prejudice against them as a whole because of Blair. And fuck if he ever did come online, he was avoiding all Sentinels like the pneumonic plague. A bio engineered antibiotic resistant one at that.

The Sentinel slapped a beige folder down in front of him on the table and offered him the kind of wide deadly smile that a shark would have envied.

“We’ve run you through the database Mr Paddington,” and the sentinel drawled his name as if it was an insult “lo and behold it appears that you are wanted for questioning by the Philadelphia PD and the FBI as a person of interest in local organised crime.” 

Tony blinked at him and slowly raised one eyebrow. But he knew his amusement was obvious to the pair of them. He wasn’t sure if they were incompetent or just impatient, but it was stupid to go into an interrogation without having all the background knowledge available.

The Guide’s hand went back on the Sentinel’s arm and just like that she continued the questioning in a calm smooth voice.

“It appears that your real name is Antonio DiNozzo jr. Only son of the infamous conman Antonio DiNozzo Sr, and favored colleague of Michele Macaluso, the head of the Macaluso crime family”.

As she was speaking the Sentinel pulled out some shots of Tony in his designer suits outside the Macaluso family restaurant and flung them down on the table in front of him.

Tony looked down and shrugged nonchalantly “I liked that suit. Tom Ford is always a classic. Michele’s is one of the best restaurants in Philly. Their cioppino is divine.” And he pulled up his cuffed hands to kiss his lips.

The Guide just stopped herself from snorting aloud but her unwilling amusement came through loud and clear and the Sentinel’s vivid blue eyes narrowed.

Huh huh Tony. Note to self, Sentinel grumpy guts really didn’t like it when his guide was seemingly reacting positively to someone else. Goody.

“So, Tony Paddington fake name, fake ID. Is there anything real about you, punk?” the Sentinel’s tone was scathing. Tony’s smile got wider as he raised one leg again and wiggled his foot at the guy.

“My boots” he offered with a wide sunny smile. “Real leather” he chirped innocently.

“You think this is funny wise guy. You are already in deep for Philly, believe me when I say that you are opening yourself to a world of pain. Your best bet is to answer our questions”.

Tony’s eyes sharpened and his smile grew meaner, those green eyes suddenly harder than emeralds.

“You haven’t introduced yourselves. Rude and rather stupid to break procedure don’t you think? After all suspects have walked for less because you lot can’t be arsed to follow your own procedures. Even Navy cops must follow regulations. So, if I am here because of Philly, why are you interviewing me, not the LEOS who are watching behind the two-way?”

He could almost taste the fury boiling thorough the Sentinel and flashing in those deadly blue eyes. Blue eyes were Tony’s weakness. Blue eyes always meant comfort and safety to Tony. Blair and Naomi were prime examples. Naomi. He mustn’t forget about Naomi. It was time to wrap this shit up.

The Guide sat up straighter and sent the Sentinel a small glare. “Indeed, you are correct Mr DiNozzo. That was remiss of us. NCIS special Agent Jethro Gibbs and Lt Colonel Sarah Mackenzie. Sentinel and Guide bonded pair working for NCIS and JAG respectively. Now Mr DiNozzo shall we discuss a) your false id, b) your “family” connection, c) the reason you broke into in Ms Sandburg’s apartment or d) that extremely incriminating picture wall of missing Sentinels and this disquieting hand written journal” Just as the Sentinel had unceremoniously produced his file, she deposited the rainbow colored book that Tony had watched Naomi use since he had become part of the family. 

This time the Sentinel smirked at him, he hadn’t missed the minute flinch when the Lt Col was using his surname or the way Tony’s lips had tightened at the sight of the journal.

Tony sat up straight and focused on the Sentinel. He would know if he was lying. But he wasn’t going to make it easier for them.

“Are you really that incompetent?” he questioned coolly. “Let’s take this in order, shall we? a) Neither of my ID’s are false. I was born Antonio DiNozzo and from the age of 12 I changed my name to Tony Paddington perfectly legally; b) I have been undercover with the Macaluso family for two years. Speak to Special Agent Tobias Fornell out of DC for confirmation about Detective Tony Paddington; c) I didn’t break into my foster mother’s apartment; the door was open, and I was checking for intruders and in case she was hurt; d) Naomi is a writer and that journal is part of her research process. I haven’t been able to speak to her for some time because I was undercover. Its more than possible she is going to write about disappearing Sentinels as her next project.”

He sat back with a satisfied smirk, but he didn’t remove his eyes from the Sentinel.

“Oh you are good” the Guide offered mildly, “not a word you believe to be untrue” Tony snorted with bitter laughter as he acknowledged the distinction.

The door to the interview room was flung open again and in strode a large man with a Captains badge pinned to his belt, and an unlit cigar in his hand. His voice was gruff and strained as he spoke to the NCIS pair.

“Mr Paddington is telling the truth about being a cop. Special Agent Fornell confirms that he is currently on a break after a two-year operation that has led to the pending prosecution of the Macaluso family. The Bolos are still in place to protect his undercover identity from retribution by the family.”

Tony was getting really fed up with these people not following proper police procedure and identifying themselves.

“Jesus Christ, if I were a perp, my attorney would have a field day with you idiots. So who the hell are you? he demanded silkily.

“I am Captain Simon Banks of the Major Crimes Unit of Cascade Police Department” the man barked gruffly at him.

Tony raised his eyebrow as he asked disbelievingly “Right and you just had a spare Navy Cop Sentinel and Guide hanging around to do your interviews for you?”

Before said Navy cop could bite his head off, they were all distracted by noises from outside.The door was still ajar, and the voices were getting louder. Gibbs watched Tony grimace openly as one particular voice came through loud and clear.

“I am telling you Man, Tony Paddington or Antonio DiNozzo, which ever name he’s using right now, will never be an intruder at my mom’s home. He is family. He is my foster brother. So, no I won’t press charges in the absence of my mom against him. I want him released now.”

Blair, they had dragged Blair into this. Well shit. He was going to have to face him earlier than he thought. His heartbeat started to increase, and adrenaline flooded his body with nerves in direct contrast to his reaction to this stupid arrest and interrogation. Longing and stubborn denial hit him at the same time, then he saw the interested expression on the Guide’s face.

“Sandburg, Blair Sandburg. One of the rare Shaman Guides, who has refused to run a Sentinel search for years. I thought I knew the name Sandburg.” Tony turned a very unimpressed expression on the Marine Guide. “Last I heard Colonel, the choice to run a search is supposed to be covered under the confidentiality laws, not gossiped about in police stations” he snarled. How fucking dare they speak about Blair like that? There was a slight flush on the Guide’s cheeks, but she raised her chin at him and for the first time there was no underlying amusement when she studied him. 

“I’ll think you will find Detective Paddington that the confidentiality laws do not cover investigating a crime.”

Tony’s eyes blazed. “Don’t try lawyer speak to wriggle your way out of this. Blair has not been arrested or brought in for questioning about any crime and there was no crime to answer in my case”.

The Sentinel lent forward “We have missing Sentinels and my gut tells me Sandburg’s mother knows something about it, even if the wall of mugshots didn’t include their images”.

Tony was just about to lose it entirely on the pair of them, but he was distracted by the sound of Blair’s voice moving closer.

The Sentinel felt the spike of fear that was hastily suppressed by the infuriating man child masquerading as a cop sitting in front of him.

“Damn it Blair. You were supposed to register for a search. You were supposed to find your Sentinel so I could at least know you were happy and safe.” Tony thought to himself.

It had never occurred to Tony that Blair would refuse a search. Not that the GI was supposed to force any Guide to search. It was just strongly encouraged. Typical of that stubborn little ass. No one had ever made Blair do anything he didn’t want to. Blair and carrots were a case in point. He might eat like a rabbit on a health kick most of the time but try to force a carrot on him and he went ballistic. Carrot shavings in shampoo was the mildest prank.

The image of the look on Blair’s face as he refused to register for a search would have been a picture. If they tried to pressure him, then there would be quite a few regretting their life choices.

Gibbs leaned forward with a menacing scowl. “I seriously don’t give a shit who you are. You are not leaving here until you tell me what you know about missing Sentinels. It’s just too much of a co-incidence that you turn up at Naomi Sandburg’s apartment, that there are pictures of missing Sentinels being used as decor for her home office and three doors down the hallway Sentinel James Ellison of Cascade PD is also missing. Been missing for over two weeks.”

Tony’s surprise was obvious. His green eyes were wide with surprise. “Well fuck” he muttered as he rubbed at his temples. What kind of supernatural shitshow had Naomi stumbled upon this time?

Instead of answering the frustrated Sentinel directly, Tony raised his voice and bellowed, “Sandy get your butt in here now” The other three people in the room stared at him in astonishment and then they heard the cries of objection as a pair of feet ran swiftly towards the room.

A bundle of power and energy wrapped in brown silky curls pushed the door wide open, his sharp blue eyes scanned the room until they stopped at the handcuffed handsome man grinning at him and then he glared ferociously.

“Stop calling me Sandy. My name is Blair. Sandy sounds like a chubby twelve-year-old. Blair is a grown man” he hissed with what sounded like long standing irritation. Tony’s grin got even wider.

The Captain’s face was a picture. “What the hell do you think you are doing? You can’t come busting your way into my interrogation room.” He raised his voice and called out “Brown, come and escort Mr Sandburg to my office and keep him company there so he can’t find his way to anywhere else he is not supposed to be”.   
  
Banks wondered for a second if he had spoken the words aloud because no one reacted. The fact that he was being ignored ignited his actual temper. He glared at the entire room.  
  
Paddington was smiling the kind of smile that would earn him a fortune on the front of a magazine. It was directed at the smaller curly headed menace as if he were all his dreams rolled into one. Sandburg was glaring up at Paddington but moving closer as if he could not help himself. Then the guy caught sight of the Journal sitting on the table and his glare turned on the other three in the room.

“Why do you have Naomi’s journal?” Sandburg asked with dangerous calm.

“Hey Blair, looking good bro. Missed you” Paddington almost whispered but except for one quick assessing glance, Sandburg kept his attention on the Sentinel and Guide pair.

“Shaman” the Guide rose from her seat and dipped her head in acknowledgment.   
  
Blair’s face blanked but he refused to acknowledge the title. “I believe I asked a question” he repeated dangerously but it was Tony who responded.

“Blair just answer two questions and then we are out of here with Naomi’s journal”.

The Sentinel rose to his feet so violently that his chair flew behind him. Neither Tony nor Blair looked at him. They were utterly focused on each other.

“What questions? “Blair asked suspiciously. “Where’s Naomi and did she know Sentinel James Ellison who lives in her building?”

“Naomi’s probably on some retreat and she has never mentioned any Sentinel” Blair answered dismissively but Tony had known him too long to miss the momentary unease. He would pick that up later.

“There you have it Gentlemen and Lady. Your missing Sentinel is nothing to do with us. Please return her journal, it has nothing to do with your case and we are out of here.”

Tony could see the way the Sentinel tensed up to deny his demand and smiled meanly at him “Due process mean anything in NCIS dude? You entered my foster mother apartment with no search warrant and removed her property. Even if you claim probable cause for entry, it was still an illegal search and seizure.”

The Captain clenched his fists “If I find out that you guys have anything to do with my missing detective, I will throw the book at you”. The promise in his voice was real.

It was the Lt Col who spoke next. Her words were coldly precise “We have nothing to hold Mr Paddington on, he’s free to go.”

Blair just turned around and marched off, after snatching the journal from the desk. Tony held out his wrists silently to the sullen Sentinel and stood there whilst he reluctantly released him, from the cuffs then he took to his heels and followed without a word to the three left in the room.

“I want them under surveillance Banks”, Gibbs snarled with frustrated fury. “I know that they are part of this, and I am going to find out how”.


	4. Chapter 3

Tony just managed to catch up to, as Blair was about to get into his beloved Corvair. He slid in the passenger door and ignored the baleful glare he received in response. He took in the state of the car and said in disbelief “Hell Burger bun when’s the last time you actually cleaned this vehicle?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just reached for the car radio but Blair slapped his hand away with a growl worthy of his wolf spirit animal.

“You know the house rules Padfoot. Driver picks the music; shotgun shuts his cake hole”.

Blair pulled out of the car lot with a squeal but maintained a semi legal speed all the way back to his place. Tony kept flicking wary glances at him as Blair was grim faced and silent for the whole trip. As they pulled into park, Tony stared at the warehouse in disbelief “What the actual hell Blair? A damned warehouse. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were strapped for cash”?

Blair maintained his silence and ignored Tony to march into the building. He didn’t bother putting any lights on as he slammed the door shut behind the pair of them.

Tony had legged it after him again and then had enough presence of mind to duck the punch heading his way. Blair grunted with rage as his arm was pushed away, but he couldn’t keep quiet much longer. His words shot at Tony with the same fury as that first punch.

“Damn you Tony. Damn you. Where the hell have you been for the last two years you bastard.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Blair was already swinging another punch at him.

It was then that Tony realized just how angry Blair was. Jesus his little sandblaster really wanted to fight. Blair was never the angry one. Blair was always the one who tried to talk through their issues. He never resorted to violence first. Guilt raised its ugly head again. Is this what Tony had done to him? Tony didn’t dispute Blair’s right to that anger but right now, they needed to concentrate on Naomi’s disappearance.

“Blair, we don’t have time for this, do you know where Naomi is? “he gasped out as he blocked the swipe at his head. But Blair was too angry to respond. His blue eyes were electric with rage and the jabs at Tony were getting more successful. After one painful dart at his left kidney, he could feel his own temper bubble up through his veins. Tony stopped trying to block the furious man and shoved Blair backwards instead.

Then he found himself grabbed by the open edges of his leather jacket as Blair took him down with him. The pair rolled over the top of the sofa and smacked straight onto the ground. Only a handmade rug cushioned the space between them and the concrete floor. 

Blair wasn’t holding anything back and got in some good hits, but he had never been able to get the better of Tony when he was that angry. They used to train together regularly before more formal education had taken them away from hunting and winning their bouts was split equally between them.

But Blair had spent the last two years on his doctorate at Rainier University whilst Tony had been learning how to adapt his hunter fighting to the down and dirty human fighting of organised crime.

Besides when all else failed Tony was taller and built like a football player, he could just trap Blair beneath him. So, he did. He slid his legs between Blair’s and just flopped on top of him. He wasn’t stupid, no way was he giving his darling Blair the opening to knee him in the balls. Tony also tightened his hold on Blair's wrists as he held them next to his head.

Blair lay there, brown curls in disarray, panting underneath the bigger man, glaring into that familiar smirking face, and those wickedly amused green eyes. “Better luck next time Sandy” he drawled mockingly. He couldn’t resist it. Teasing Blair was one of the greatest joys of his life.

Tony thought for a second steam was going to erupt from Blair’s ears then he saw the way he narrowed those intense intelligent blue eyes, and that old familiar expression crossed his face. Excitement and lust hit low in his gut, and that damn inconvenient erection that began to nudge against Blair’s groin.

Blair smiled and Tony helplessly smiled back at him. He was so fucking beautiful, and Tony had missed him so much. It had been so long since they had been this close physically. God almighty Tony wanted him. Then his own green eyes clouded with all the reasons that wasn’t possible and he suddenly realized just what a stupid position he had put the pair of them in.

But before he could move and release Blair, the shameless bastard lunged up and caught his lips with his own.

Tony froze but the feel of that mouth on him, that tongue licking over his lips, seeking entrance to his mouth, the throaty satisfied moan, all combined to drive any thoughts of moving out of Tony’s head. Blair tasted of safety, of home, of love and Tony needed that like he needed oxygen.

He couldn’t even object when he felt the empathic links Blair was reforging between them. It felt like he had stepped out into the sunlight when he had been living in the shadows for so long. It felt like liquid love was flooding through his body, his mind, his soul. He could feel Blair inside him, and he couldn’t even be angry about it anymore. Blair was where he was meant to be.

“Welcome home my Guide” Blair whispered against his lips, as the bonds tightened between them.

Tony closed his eyes in bliss but not for long, all the same old doubts came flooding back.

“I’m not a Guide Blair, I’m not online. I don’t have a spirit animal. And logically how the hell can a Guide have a Guide?” Tony whispered sadly against that perfect mouth. He felt that mouth smile against his and his heart healed a little more.  
  
“Tony love, you are as online as I am. I have been searching for answers with the other Shaman on the spirit plane and we all agree that you are online. Your spirit animal is hiding for some reason, but you are definitely online.” Blair nuzzled Tony’s cheek in comfort.

“But how Blair? I don’t understand. You know that the GI says you are only online when your spirit animal is visible and joins you.”

Blair snorted with derision at the mention of the GI. “As if they know everything about Sentinel and Guides. They only know what fits into their world view. They only want to know what fits into their world view. Of course, they were formed to protect Guides and then Sentinels from worldwide Government abuse, not disputing that, but they lost all their zeal for rebelling and making life better when they realized that if they conformed to widely held beliefs they would get more political power.”  
  
He stared up into Tony’s fond expression. “Can’t help yourself when it comes to the dissemination of Information and learning can you my darling analySand”.

Blair narrowed his eyes “You do know that is an actual word, not a nickname and it means someone undergoing psychoanalysis, don’t you?” He got a grin for his troubles and then he turned his own smirk on the idiot lying so comfortably above him. “You aren’t going to distract me so easily. You are an online Guide. You can come to the spirit plane with me, you can see our Sentinel’s jaguar, not only can you see Mooney you named him. You saw Mooney before I did when he first made his presence known. You also spotted the jaguar first. I might be a shaman because I’ve walked the path, but the kind of powers you manifest without a spirit animal means that when your spirit animal finally decides to show up, you will be an Alpha Guide.”

Tony stared at Blair open mouthed, then rolled off him to lay beside him on the ground staring up at the warehouse ceiling. He opened his eyes wide when he saw the fluorescent devil’s trap drawn above them. What the hell? They never hunted demons if they could help it. As far as Tony knew they had only come across one of the black-eyed bastards once and defeated it by sheer freaking luck. But Naomi had made them learn everything they could about that type of evil, so they at least had some idea what they were dealing with the next time they ran head long into that kind of situation.

Blair noted his gobsmacked expression and looked up. He forgot the trap was there for the most part. “That’s why I rented the place. Cheap and protected. Protection sigils on everything that’s vertical, salt runnels on all the entrances including windows, iron beams, and copper latches and doorknobs. It must have been a hunter’s safe house once.”

But Tony’s mind was focused on what Blair had said previously, “Seriously Blair? An Alpha and a Shaman Guide in a Bond? They won’t let that stand in a million years.”  
  
Tony imitated the last GI official they had the misfortune to meet when Blair had asked for information about Guide bonds with other Guides “We need to share our gifts with a Sentinel. How dare we be selfish?”

Blair snorted with amusement but then something else he said popped into Tony’s mind.

“Our Sentinel?” Tony squeaked, then dropped his voice an octave lower in embarrassment as he repeated the question “Our Sentinel?” He turned to stare at Blair in shock.

Blair grinned evilly. “Took you long enough Super Cop. Ours is the word I used, and the GI can go to hell. There isn’t a damn thing they can do about it. What kind of Sentinel do you think needs two Guides of our complementary but different powers? Do you seriously think that Sentinel will just give one of us up if asked?” Blair sniggered with glee at the wide-eyed look on Tony’s face.

Tony needed to change the subject. This was too close to everything he could ever want and had denied himself since he found out he was a latent Guide.

He rolled to his feet, wincing slightly at the well-placed hits that had left a definite impact. He reached down and hauled Blair up. Blair smiled up at him but that slowly faded as Tony took both a physical and mental step back. Blair just rolled his eyes with fond exasperation. Naomi repeatedly called them both delightfully headstrong, her euphemism for obstinate little mules.

But they all knew that Blair could out stubborn granite when he wanted to and that had never changed. For just a second Tony considered that maybe the Sentinel would have to be powerful just to be able to keep up with the two of them. He just didn’t know if he could deal with the prospect of having everything yet. He needed time to get his head around it. Besides which he was sure the other shoe was gonna drop, and really who would want him when they could have his Blair?

Tony could see from the darkening expression that Blair was about to get serious, so his diversionary tactic was a doozy.

“Naomi’s missing Blair” He stared at Blair, daring him to change the subject, letting him feel his own concern through their shared bond.

Blair’s eyes narrowed but he sighed “So? She’s always missing Tony, when is she ever present?” he asked flippantly as he headed towards the kitchen area.

Tony frowned “This time it’s serious kid, I went to find her, and she was just gone.” Blair scowled at the use of the word kid, but he wanted a cup of chamomile tea damn it. Tony had been calling him kid since they met. The idiot was literally 9 months older than Blair, and the smug ass had had never let him forget it.

“Tony, she hasn’t been in contact for months. I don’t know if she was supposed to meet you, but you know if something crops up, we are always the last to know, unless she needs us on a hunt”.

Blair rolled his eyes and continued his path towards the open plan kitchen. He had changed his mind, he needed a beer not herbal tea, and he might even let that obstinate ass have one too.

Tony drew a deep breath. Blair wasn’t going to like this, but he had to try to make him see the seriousness of the situation.” I contacted her about three weeks ago, telling her the job was nearly wrapped up and I was coming to see her. She was supposed to wait around to meet me… “ his voice trailed off as he felt the rage and hurt that emanated from Blair. He winced as Blair came to a full stop, still with his back to him.

Blair tensed up and glared over his shoulder “You contacted her and not me?” there was an odd tone to his voice. Tony shook his head tiredly. “My reasoning hasn’t changed Blair. We are going to catch flak for this, you know we are. And I have only ever wanted you to be safe and happy.”

It was Blair’s turn to wince as he saw that old familiar pain in those beautiful green eyes, but Tony didn’t call him Sandblaster just because it was a play on his surname. Blair would blow the crap out of anything that stood in his way and no one ever saw it coming. They only saw a curly haired, smiling, hippy academic. Blair had taken his fair share of bad guys down, supernatural, or not. Being underestimated was his bag and it always worked well for him.

Blair shook his head with the mildly repressed exasperation that was his normal setting when it came to his mother “Yeah supposed to meet you Anthony, you. You need to learn to detach with love Man.” The last words, Naomi’s oft repeated mantra, were tinged with faint bitterness.

Tony winced. Jesus, Blair was always the one who forgave Naomi first, and he dragged Tony along in his wake. What the hell had she done this time to alienate Blair? They didn’t have time to discuss it right now. That could be dealt with when they knew their Mom was safe.

“Blair, in the same building, on the same damn floor, her Sentinel neighbor has also gone missing and in her apartment, there was a crime board of Sentinels who had disappeared over nearly 50 years. This is either something to do with the GI or a supernatural big bad she’s stumbled across.” They both paled at the thought of whatever was powerful enough to take down Sentinels for a half a century, then Blair looked sick to his stomach as his quick mind came up with a third option. “or its supernatural and GI combined.”

They stared at each other silently, both chilled to the marrow at that thought. “Christ Almighty Blair forget the beer I’ve got a bottle of Labrinsky’s in my duffel bag.” “Tony, you know a couple of shots of Hunters Helper and I am done for.”

“Yeah, but you are such a cute drunk. Short and Bossy and…short” Blair leveled an unimpressed look at the other man. Tony drew in a breath. Damn it, that look had presaged trouble and strife since they were kids. Tony’s mind flew back to the first time they had met in Hawaii.

_Tony stared at the other kid. He had watched his father flirting with the beautiful woman in the floaty dress and turned his head away to try to distract himself. Instead, he had met a pair of intense blue eyes that had been watching him. The kid looked younger than him, he was shorter, with a mass of brown curls that his father would have shaved off and the kind of face that looked like he smiled a lot. He wasn’t smiling right now, but Tony thought that was because he was concentrating. He looked like he was studying a puzzle instead of a person, but those blue eyes were unblinking and seemed to see straight into his brain. For a second Tony wondered if they were in the Twilight Zone and Rod Sterling was gonna pop up. Then the kid smiled at him, and it was like watching the sunrise._

_Tony was entranced as the other kid bounced on the spot and then he found himself being hugged and he could have sworn he heard the kid whisper “Mine” before he stepped back and offered his name._

_The beautiful woman turned to them with a smile “Blair baby, why don’t you and Tony entertain yourselves in the hotel grounds and if you need snacks or a drink just have them charged to the DiNozzo's room.” Before Tony’s father could say anything, she turned back to him with a sultry smile and lowered her voice “You don’t mind do you Anthony, gives us a bit of time to get to know each other.”_   
_The objection dropped from his face as he smoothly agreed with her and dismissed the kids._

_Tony smiled as he remembered his relief when Naomi and Blair had come to the hotel suite when Senior had left the Island and abandoned him. It was only later that he found out from Naomi that she had orchestrated it when a tall English man had met them, introduced himself as his Uncle Clive and told him that he never had to worry about his father again. Tony hadn’t understood until he was older that Clive had been happy for him to stay with Naomi and Blair because of his latent status with the sole proviso that the three of them spent at least two months a year with the Paddingtons._

Tony was no fool. He knew Naomi wasn’t the ideal parent, but he still adored her and had more patience with her than Blair. Naomi might climb the crazy tree, but Tony never felt unloved or a burden. The exact opposite to Senior. She wasn’t even angry when they got into trouble. Instead, there was fond exasperation and a warning about Karma coming back to nip them in their little butts before making them talk through their bad decisions. A horrid punishment for two young boys.

Unfortunately, they were both trouble magnets. But Blair was in a class of his own. Tony just knew that Blair was gearing up to do something outrageous. He looked like a freaking cherub with the curls, the blue eyes, the dimples, and that sweet smile but it was always Blair that came up with the truly outrageous shit. Everyone except for Naomi, who knew what her darling son was capable of, blamed Tony because Tony could never pull off the “who me?” expression that Blair excelled at. His Uncle Clive’s favorite expression for Blair was clever little bugger when they were growing up.

Before Tony could move to safety across the room, Blair thrust himself up and locked lips with him. Then rolled his hips up in a suggestive motion as he ground himself against the taller man. Hell, yeah, Trouble with a capital T. Blair was outrageous, gorgeous, and as sexy as hell. Tony moaned unwillingly. It had been too long without his Blair.

Christ, they hadn’t even had a drink yet. What was he going to be like when they hit the liquid Hunters’ helper?

For a weak moment, Tony let himself enjoy the delicious feel of Blair against his mouth and body, but then pulled away reluctantly. He drew a deep steadying breath as he pleaded hoarsely “Stop it Blair we need to concentrate on Naomi. What are we going to do?”

The hungry expression on Blair’s face morphed into a sort of malicious compliance and Tony felt himself get even harder. Trust Blair. God Tony had to get some control of this situation. Tony stared at Blair, unimpressed, ignoring the lust coursing through his own body until Blair flushed and dipped his head slightly. Then he flung his head back defiantly and offered grudgingly, “I suppose we could talk to Bobby”.  
  
Tony considered him. That was not a bad idea at all. Why the hell hadn’t he thought about that? Naomi trusted Singer on a level that she had never reached with her sons. Despite her well vaunted detaching with love to give them room to grow, Naomi still saw the pair of them as kids. Naomi’s friendship with the man had always struck Tony as odd. Robert Singer was a battle-hardened, hard drinking cynical Hunter who collected knowledge about the Supernatural like a damn hoarder and refused to trust anyone. Even his few friends were tested each time he saw them until they proved to his satisfaction that they were human.   
  
The guy was never pleased to see anyone, but he always had a gun in his pocket … and in his jacket, under his hat, behind the sofa cushions and in the coffee can, on top of the fridge, in the rest room and god alone knew how many he had stashed in that truck. The flighty hippy heiress was as knowledgeable as the hunter in the Supernatural and she could and would drink the guy under the table. It was a strange relationship, but it worked for them.

Tony made grabby motions at Blair’s cell. “Why the hell don’t you have his number programmed into your phone?” Blair grouched at him as he begrudgingly started to pull the thing out of his pocket.

“Hmm I wonder why? Detective DiNozzo, how nice to see you have the number of the dodgy Singer Salvage Yard under your personal contacts, said no IA officer ever, QuickSand.”

“Bobby’s not…” but Tony him interrupted impatiently. “Seriously Sandy, it’s called plausible deniability. I’m a cop, just off a long-term undercover operation with the freaking Mafia, and the Don wanted me to marry his daughter. Besides, I dumped my own cell and the burner phone the Feebs gave me so no-one could track me here.”

Blair rolled his eyes, but they both felt the surprising jealousy that raced through the bond. Blair stiffly conceded the point and instead complained bitterly about that nickname once again “you know Sandy was a chubby 12-year-old, Blair is a grown grad student, working on his PhD”.

Tony grinned at him “Sure…Sandblast”.

Blair threw his cell at the infuriating bastard, unsuccessfully hiding his own amusement.

Tony put the cell on speaker as he rang the listed number.

“Singer Salvage” a gruff voice finally answered after letting the call ring for long enough that Tony was contemplating cutting it off and trying it later.

Tony flashed a quick look at Blair before he responded calmly, “Bobby, this is Anthony, Naomi Sandburg’s kid. Just calling to check if you have spoken to her recently.”

“Tony, long time no speak. How’s it going with your doctorate at Rainier?” the gravelly voice asked with faux pleasantry. Tony smiled wickedly “Still a suspicious bastard Singer? You don’t change. Blair is at Rainier working on his Doctorate. I have been working in Philly as a Cop. I’d drink holy water for you but there’s no point as I am on the phone” He snarked.

There was a waiting silence as if the guy were considering his options. “If Blair is with you put it on speaker I wanna hear his voice too” he demanded gruffly.

Blair rolled his eyes but called out cheerfully “Hey Bobby, how’s the hat? You washed it at all since we saw you last?” Bobby snorted with unwilling amusement. “Yep, that sure sounds like Blair the brat”  
  
Tony interrupted “Right now that’s out of the way, have you seen or heard from Naomi”.

“Not so fast idjit, you don’t get passed me that easy” Tony raised his eyes brows and mouthed “easy” at Blair who bit his lip in amusement. “Recite the Rituale Romanum boys. And I want to hear you loud and clear.”

They could almost see the malicious smile on the guy’s bearded face. Sneaky old bastard Tony thought admiringly. If they were possessed, they wouldn’t be able to recite those words without being exorcised so would refuse outright. If they were anything else supernatural like a shapeshifter, Skinwalker or Djinn then it was highly unlikely that they would know the incantation and even if they did manage to start it, they wouldn’t be able to finish it without causing themselves pain.

Bobby Singer was a vicious genius, he could always find a way to turn a situation to his own advantage. That didn’t mean that Tony wasn’t going to mess with the old bastard just for the sake of it. He saw the same mischief in Blair’s eyes.

“Fuck sake Bobby, you know we mostly do the salt and burns, we’ve only ever dealt with one demon possession” Tony fake grumbled in order to provoke a reaction. 

“Call yourself hunters. One time should be enough for you idjits to remember how to save your own god damn lives, take down one of those black-eyed bastards and free up a meat suit.” He scolded without compromise.

“You want it in Latin or English?” Blair asked sweetly.

“Don’t test me boy or I’ll make you say it in both” The older man growled with irritation. “Chop chop, aint got all day.”

“Latin it is then” Tony murmured, and they began to recite the incantation in unison, harmonizing the words.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica….”  
  
Until by the end they were singing the chant like choirboys. There was silence on the other end of the line.

“That good enough for you Mr Singer sir?” Tony regretted the sarcastic question almost as soon as he opened his mouth.

“Na idjit, I want it in English now too”.

“Come on Bobby, we’re sorry. You know it’s us. We really need to talk to you” Blair interceded after shooting Tony a glare.

Singer left them hanging for a few moments and then grudgingly responded, “Well you didn’t die screaming in agony so reckon you must be who you say you are. Now what do you pair of fools want?”

“Gee Bobby you are all heart” Tony grumbled and crossed his eyes, but Blair talked over the top of him whilst smacking him in the shoulder.

“Bobby, have you spoken to Naomi lately? She is missing along with some Sentinels. Don’t know if its GI or supernatural shit but we can’t get hold of her and she left her journal behind with a picture wall of missing Sentinels going back nearly 50 years. There’s also some shit going down with both Navy and local cops Man, so we need to make sure she’s okay and safe. And to top that off we need to know what the hell is going on because what kind of supernatural big bad can take down Sentinels in those kinds of numbers and unnoticed for that length of time.”

Blair finally let the worry he’d been ignoring free. If their Mom was involved in this situation, then she needed back up.

There was a short considering silence before the older Hunter responded “I spoke to her a few days ago. She asked me about the Temple of the Moon and how to defeat Djinns. I’ll tell you what I told her. You need silver dipped in lambs’ blood to kill ‘em, or an old-fashioned beheading, even bashing their brains in will work. That’s all I got for you boys. Stay safe” and the infuriating old goat cut the call.

Bobby Singer threw the cell down on his desk and turned to face the beautiful woman calmly sipping from a beer bottle on his couch. “Damn it Naomi, you sure ‘bout this? Those boys need more help than that cryptic shit if they going to the Temple of the Moon and they are worried for you. They’ll be distracted when they should be focused on the monsters.”

Naomi smiled ruefully up at him. Even after all these years, when she smiled at him, he still wanted to sweep her off to bed. He was too old and curmudgeonly for this shit, so he just scowled at her instead.

“Bobby darling, we have no place in this. This is their destiny. They have my journal. Everything I know is in that and Blair will devour it even if Tony holds back. They know where to go and how to fight the Djinn. I can’t and won’t be a distraction from that. I will let them know I am safe when they are on their way to Peru”. The words were sad but determined as she put down the beer and gracefully stood up.

“Fuck destiny Naomi, it’s shit is what it is. I don’t care about your hippie dippy spirit guides metaphorical bullshit fortune telling. I’m gonna to ring them back” the Hunter growled in a temper.

Naomi Sandburg moved to stand directly in front of one of the most dangerous men she had ever known and declared firmly, using her finger on his breastbone to make her point.

“You most certainly will not Robert Singer. They must do this to get their Sentinel. As soon as I saw James Ellison at the apartment building, I knew he was theirs, just as when I found Tony, I knew he was ours. Do you think I like it that my boys are going into danger without me? No, I bloody well do not. Now stop posturing and take me to bed. We could both do with some distraction.”

“When this is over, I am going to visit that old bastard for a chat about the proper way to provide information” Tony growled as he scowled down at the cell in his hand “What the fuck is the Temple of the Moon?”  
  
Tony hadn’t noticed that Blair had become strangely immobile, as if all that abundant energy that so characterized him had drained away whilst listening to Singer’s words.

“Machu Pichu in Peru” Blair breathed, his voice and expression far away.

“Blair?” Tony asked with concern. Blair blinked and looked at him, but it seemed like he was still almost talking to himself.

“I’ve got tickets for Peru, leaving on Friday to join an expedition to study the Chopec tribe. We would have to take another flight from Jorge Chávez International Airport to Cusco which is the nearest airport to the site.”

“You were going to Peru without telling me?” Tony glared at Blair “For how fucking long?”

Awareness flashed through those blue eyes and Blair’s temper ignited, “Well it wasn’t going to be for two years” he retorted snidely “three months max, so that I could meet Incacha, the tribe’s shaman and one of the most powerful Guides I have ever met in the psionic plane. The fact that I would also finish my doctorate research was a bonus.”

They glared at each other, until green eyes dropped sheepishly “Blair” Tony whispered apologetically. “Oh shut up you idiot and come to bed. When I have made you suffer enough, we will sort out the flights.”


	5. Chapter 4

NCIS Agent Timothy McGee picked up his phone and dialed his boss Gibbs. He surveyed the empty desks in the bullpen. He was not impressed that he had been left behind when the team had headed off to Cascade, but he’d been sent on what was basically a refresher course because Gibbs’ Guide aka Marine Lt Colonel Mackenzie, Senior JAG lawyer had thrown a fit when she realized how they had obtained certain evidence.  
  
She had insisted that McGee attend the Digital Evidence Acquisition Specialist Training at FLETC. Gibbs had only just managed to get out of the course himself by stating it was too technical for him.  
McGee was quite certain that Mac had found a way to punish Gibbs for his “reckless, impatient and downright stupid unprofessional behavior” It was the only thing that kept his resentment at bay during the stupid course.  
  
McGee had finished the training just in time to come back to the office and execute the warrant for tracking the cell phone of one Blair Sandburg.

It was Mac who answered the call. Tim knew Gibbs hated answering his cell, but he would normally if it was his own team. “Ma’am I have the information Special Agent Gibbs requested. Is he available?”

“He’s just speaking to Captain Banks at the moment McGee, is it urgent?”

“Yes, Ma’am I believe so. Sandburg and Paddington intend to leave Cascade tomorrow.” The next voice McGee heard was Gibbs.

“Probie what have you got for me?” the Sentinel growled impatiently.

“Two seats on the early flight to the international airport in Callao Peru in 24 hours, then connecting onward flights to Cusco. I have no information regarding what they are doing after that, or why they are going there. The main touristy thing there of course is Machu Pichu but why would they go there? There is a highly lucrative illegal trade in antiquities and of course the drug trade. But Sandburg was booked on the flight to Peru some time ago by Rainier's anthropology department. I am waiting for more information from the University Administration regarding that trip.”

“Keep on it Probie and let me know what you find”.

McGee didn’t even have a chance to voice his agreement before the call was cut off.

“God damn it” Gibbs growled as he handed the cell back to Mac instead of giving into the temptation to throw it against the wall. He felt the calming touch of his Guide through their bond and gave a sigh instead of continuing with his rant. Kate turned away with a smirk and Simon Banks raised his eyebrows as he demanded “What’s the news Gibbs?”

“They are off to Peru tomorrow” “Peru” Kate repeated in confusion, but the Sentinel saw something in the Captain’s eyes that made him turn to him inquiringly. Mac beat him to it “Captain Banks?”

“Hmm, it’s just that Jim spent time in Peru when he was in the Rangers. He came online after a fire fight there when the rest of his unit was killed and he was stranded with a local tribe, the Chopec I think they were called, serving as their tribal Sentinel until the Army recovered him eighteen months later.”

There was a short considering silence. “We need to go to Peru” Gibbs announced, “Come on Boss, the Director is not going to authorize flight tickets and hotels to another country when we don’t even know if Petty Officer Murray is with Detective Ellison.” Todd objected reasonably.

The Sentinel let out a menacing growl that echoed the one given by Helm, his suddenly visible spirit animal, a silvery blue Glacier bear. Kate took a step back in alarm. Helm was big and intimidating and he normally was only visible when the Sentinel was very agitated. She threw a panicked look at Mac.

“That’s enough Jethro” and suddenly it was the Marine Lt Colonel who barked at him not his Guide. “You know Kate’s right, so don’t shoot the messenger.”

“It’s the only damn lead we have, and I am not giving this case up. We will find Ellison and Petty Officer Murray.” Gibbs stubbornly insisted as the bear lent against him in solidarity.

Banks calm voice broke the tension. “Well, if you get permission to go, I might have a solution for the travel and accommodation problem. Give me a couple of minutes.”

The Captain headed into his office, but that was no protection from Sentinel hearing. Gibbs listened unashamedly to the call he made to some guy called Stephen. Then Gibbs remembered that Ellison had a brother, and his family were rich. Ellison didn’t have much to do with his father, but he and his younger brother were close. The brother offered the use of the family’s private plane and a suite in the best hotel in Lima. It seemed he was just as desperate to find his brother and would happily pay for them to travel there.

Mac sighed as she sat back next to her Sentinel on the Ellison’s private jet. “I could get used to this Jethro. Beats a priority ride every damn time.” Gibbs chuckled as his badass Guide toed off her shoes and curled her legs up underneath her on the spacious seat. She wriggled until she was practically in his lap, and her head rested on his shoulder. Gibbs could feel his Sentinel settle as well as his Guide. This case was ramping up his Sentinel instincts. Abby would call it hinky, and she would be right. There was something he wasn’t seeing, and Helm was disturbed too. His gut was screaming danger at him, and at the center of it was Ellison and the Paddington Sandburg double act. 

Todd had been left behind as liaison with Cascade PD. Much to her voluble hissed objections but Gibbs’ instinct was to keep a mundane away from this mess. He damn well knew this was Sentinel business only. It was bad enough that he had to take Mac. He didn’t have to say that aloud, she had taken one look at his face and raised one brow as if daring him to say anything, while she murmured implacably just softly enough that only he could hear. “I’m a Marine Gunny and don’t you damn forget it. And if you say Rule 13, you won’t get laid for a month.” He had nearly spat his damn coffee all down his shirt at her vicious smirk before she tossed her head and turned away. Christ he adored that woman. “Rule 23 Mac” he hollered because he could. “Never mess with a Marine’s coffee…” She carried on walking away but extended her right arm and very gracefully gave him the finger.

Gibbs pulled out the reports that McGee had sent through. Blair Sandburg was a doctoral student at Rainier studying anthropology and mythology. He was due to attend a final research project with a team living with the Chopec tribe in Peru. And wasn’t that a dandy little coincidence? Gibbs rule 39. There was no such thing as coincidence. Sandburg and Paddington had some serious questions to answer. They were the only real lead the team had.

Mac had been very pensive since she had met the pair of them, “they are definitely hiding something Jethro” she had murmured in bed that night. “I can’t read Paddington at all. I never have a problem with mundanes. Sandburg is a Shaman, so he can block anyone if he wants to. But Paddington is strange. Mundanes spill their emotions and very rarely have the discipline or training to contain them. If I didn’t know better, I would say that he was a strong Guide, because it feels like he is shielding. But there is none of the tell-tale signs. And there is no record of Paddington registering as latent with the GI. The Paddington line is full of Sentinels, but the DiNozzos have always been mundane since testing started.”

“How the hell did you find out all that?” Gibbs asked in disbelief, frowning down into the brown eyes staring up at him from the pillow.

“I rang Commander Turner. There was something about the name Sandburg and the GI. I knew Sturgis was involved. A couple of years ago, when Sandburg came online as a Shaman on US soil, certain members of the Initiative and other interested parties decided that the guy should be registered properly and bonded to a Sentinel whether he wanted to or not. Unfortunately for them, Sturgis Turner was already there dealing with a case for a Navy Guide, and he became aware of the circumstances. He immediately informed Edward Sheffield who had just moved into the position of the Director of the Guide Initiative.”

Gibbs interrupted again, surprise in his tone. “Previous Sec Nav to Davenport?” he queried, “Stickler for the rule book and protecting his people.” Mac smirked at him as she nodded. Gibbs lent back and pulled Mac tighter against him. “Bet that went over like a lead balloon” he snorted.

“You could say that. As many people went on ethic courses as were retired or sacked. Sheffield was taking no prisoners. Found out that that they had also investigated his foster brother Tony Paddington. Invited Sandburg in to apologize but the guy blew him off. Sheffield has made sure that Sandburg has been left alone since, while going through the Initiative like a dose of really vicious but healthy salts.”

Mac could feel Gibbs's amusement, so she offered something else for her Sentinel to think about. He was stubborn to his core but once the suggestion was made, he could be relied on to consider all the angles before outright rejecting it.

“If this gets any more complex, it might be worth considering talking to Sheffield directly”.

Gibbs gave her the hairy eyeball but didn’t reject it outright, which was all she could ask really. The niggling concern at the back of her mind wouldn’t let her relax. They were all professionals, but they still hadn’t found out how Ellison had been snatched. Knowing that could happen to someone like Ellison, a savvy street cop and ex – Ranger even if his abilities as a Sentinel were in the lower range scared the crap out of her.  
  
Her Sentinel wouldn’t take it well if she voiced her concerns because he was another stubborn bastard, but she would be using all her abilities to make sure whatever the hell had taken Ellison and Petty Officer Murray wasn’t heading Gibbs way. Including her skills with a gun.


	6. Chapter 5

Ellison came out of the auto repair shop that had housed Petty Officer Sean Murray’s vehicle for over a week. Henri Brown had tracked down the vehicle’s whereabouts. He had questioned the mechanics and shop owner to no avail. The young Sentinel had dropped his car off for a service and then just never returned. The owner was getting pissed about it. The work had been completed but the shop hadn’t received any payment. He told Ellison he was lucky the car was still there because if the guy hadn’t returned in another couple of days, he was going to sell it to make his money back. Ellison decided to hang on until Forensics arrived to collect the vehicle. The car was going to the police pound, not an auction lot. Ellison had quickly scanned the car with his senses but couldn’t pick up anything. 

He stepped outside when the removal team arrived. He was frustrated because there was an odd aura that caused his skin to tingle but he wasn’t a strong enough Sentinel to determine what it was. The GI had run tests on him when he had been rescued from Peru because they thought he might be one of the rare Elemental Sentinels. Especially when he told them his spirit animal was a black Jaguar. They had tried everything they could to get his spirit animal to manifest and ran test after test after test.   
  
They had lost interest when his sense tests came back as mediocre at best, and his spirit animal had refused to appear. They had basically accused him of lying about the jaguar until they had read the official rescue report and then just assumed that they had all seen something but in the heat of the moment were mistaken about the type of spirit.  
  
Ellison had nearly demanded what the hell else it could be, but he was tired of being there and their stupid tests, so he kept his mouth shut.  
  
He was a less than average Sentinel on all five of his senses. He had refused to tell the GI about seeing ghosts. Finally, the GI concluded that the Rangers who rescued him were mistaken about his abilities. He had been given the basic training for online Sentinels, sent back out into the world with a pat on his back and left to his own devices.

Ellison headed to the nearby coffee shop. Thank god it was empty at that time of the day. He didn’t want to deal with anyone else at the moment, when his senses, as pathetic as they were, were spiking. He had missed lunch and he needed something before he went back to the precinct to tell Banks it was another dead end.

He raised his head when the beautiful blond waitress turned up at his table. Her name tag said Alexis, and she pulled out her pad and pen as she asked him what he wanted. She gave an embarrassed grimace as she dropped the pen in front of him on the table, and then patted his hand in thanks as he handed it back to her with a wry smile.

Ellison forgot about needing food and that odd tingle when to his utter shock, out of the large coffee shop window, he suddenly saw the missing Petty Officer Sean Murray running through the alleyway at the back of the Auto repair shop. He rose from the table, muttering apologies at the waitress and ran out to follow him.

Alexis Barnes kept a tight grip on the Sentinel’s bare hand as he stared off into the distance. How delicious. This one had just fallen straight into her lap because he was searching for her other prey. For a second her eyes glowed, and blue tattoos appeared on her creamy skin as she ensured that she had his mind in her grip.

Time to take her prey home. Really it was such a pain having to trawl new hunting grounds but unfortunately now the gifted community were getting more organised, she had to make sure there was no evidence to link their disappearances. The other one, Murray, was barely online. A poor specimen but still a Sentinel.

She wasn’t going back to the wretched homeless and indigent folk that she had made do with for years. Humans who wouldn’t be missed. Sentinels offered a much better quality of diet. Guides were to be put down as soon as they entered her territory. She rarely put stock in the old prophecies, but she hadn’t lasted for centuries by being stupid. Any Guide would be killed, the way they used their psionic power meant that they could not be fed upon, but she especially targeted the Raven Guides. She had ways to access the GI register to discover any Raven Guides. It had been immensely helpful of them to list her targets for her. Every Raven Guide born in the last fifty years had been dealt with by her order or her own hand.   
Her plan had been so successful that for the last twenty years not one had been registered. She was convinced that she had successfully wiped that type of Guide out of existence. It had been her mission ever since she had found out about her prophesied death bringer. What use were Prophecies if not to change the future?

Now she selected sentinel prey for the annual moon ceremony at her nest, prey with the power to reinforce her status as Queen. She could not afford to take too many Sentinels at one time. They had begun to come together as a formalized group in recent years when in ages past their territorial nature ensured that stayed away from other Sentinels.  
  
It was becoming more dangerous to hunt them unnoticed, but she had to admit, the hunt built up a good appetite and the satisfaction of sapping their heightened senses through her poisoned dream world was delicious. She didn’t allow her minions to taste Sentinel power, she wasn’t stupid. Only once had that mistake happened and the fool had tried to rule in her stead. Alexis had soon removed that threat. 

“Lash” she called imperiously. The weaker Djinn came out of the kitchen, the swinging door revealing the sight of a pair of legs on the ground. She sighed in annoyance.  
“Did you have to kill the cook? Now we have to hide his body as well as the waitress.”  
  
Lash just grinned lazily at her; his blue tinged eyes glowed with well-fed satisfaction until the Queen backhanded him to bring him back to his senses.

“Take their ID’s and whichever of their vehicles has enough room for this prey to get to the shipping container in Seattle. Bracket has my other prey there already. These ones are weak this time. I will need to feed from the two of them for the ceremony. Once the container is loaded, Bracket and I will stay with the prey. I expect you to get back to the great cavern and prepare it for my arrival. The ship will dock in about 15 days at Lima.” She smiled menacingly at the Djinn.  
  
“Don’t fail me Lash, or I will feed both you and Bracket to my next spawn, alive.”

The Queen Djinn was furious, they had been travelling for a few days when she discovered that Bracket had been draining the weak Sentinel he had been guarding. She had pulled him away in a rage, flung him across the container until his body had bounced off the metal walls but she was too late, the younger Sentinel was dead, and her own Djinn had betrayed her.

She watched him rise to his feet with a smirk “you can’t ignore me now my Queen; I am strong enough to be your Consort.”

She stared at him in disbelief. The arrogant fool thought the stolen sentinel powers put him on a par with his Queen. Her eyes flared and he shrank back. She soon disabused him of that notion as she drained the life force from him in the worst possible way. She let the dried-out husk fall to the floor. It would be dust within hours but now she had to deal with a dead human. There was no way she was going to spend another two weeks in a container with a decaying human corpse. She would also need another Sentinel for the ritual.

She did not have time for this. There was no way she could return to her new hunting grounds and make it back in time for the ritual. But she needed another Sentinel. This prey was not strong enough to sustain her powers until the next ritual. After all these years, she no longer had the option to stalk the jungle for one of the tribes’ Guardians. They had become too wary of the Djinn.

Her eyes fell on the slack face of the one remaining living Sentinel. She moved to his cot, caressed his cheek gently, and nearly moaned with pleasure at the delicious taste of that Sentinel life force, even weak as he was. She had been doing this for a long time and she had all the patience in the world. A little sip whilst he was sleeping to calm her from her righteous rage and then she would review the problem.  
She pulled a little more life force and he groaned. Just a little to reinvigorate her. Images flooded her mind of the sleeping Sentinel searching for the Petty Officer, questioning people, showing his badge. Excitement brightened her eyes again and she removed her fingers from his temple. Instead, she searched his clothes. There it was the bright gold badge of a Police Detective. She smoothed her fingers over it as she stared at his face. James Ellison. Sentinel and Detective. What would happen when they discovered he was missing? Her eyes began to glow with that eerie blue light as the solution to her problem became apparent. Perfect bait for the perfect prey. She wouldn’t need to do any hunting at all. The prey would come to her.  
The idea was appealing. He had been so easy to trap. It would be easy to convince him he was still searching for the missing Sentinel and even easier to get him to contact another Sentinel for assistance without alerting the authorities.

Maybe this didn’t have to be such a disaster after all. Her eyes flickered over to the dead Djinn as it began to crumple into dust, and she smiled.


	7. Chapter 6

Tony stared at his companion bleary eyed. He didn’t know how Blair did it, his mouth to God’s ear. If there was a human equivalent to an energizer bunny it was Blair Sandburg. Eighteen hours. Eighteen hours and change just to get to Cusco airport. Now they had to find accommodation, food and then arrange transport to the Temple of the Moon without being caught in a tourist trap when that’s all Tony wanted to do was fall asleep on his Shaman’s chest, listening to his heartbeat.

Blair was almost bouncing with excitement, chattering away in Quechua, the dialect for the area. Tony was better at Spanish, but he could at least understand that a friendly taxi driver was taking them to a bed and breakfast that was owned by his father. Tony began to stir, he wasn’t that out of it that he would ignore an attempt to rip them off, but before he could say anything, Blair muttered quietly in English “Use your senses Tonio, guy’s genuine”.

Tony was too exhausted to bother, he was reassured that Blair had at least taken that precaution. Shit he must be tired. Blair was always more cautious than he was when they were on a hunt, never looked like it but the guy scanned everyone and their dogs looking for motive or negative energy.

He needed some sleep god damn it. “Soon babe” Blair murmured soothingly. 

They finally got to the room; Tony was dithering about taking a shower first because he hated feeling grimy, but he was edging closer to that lovely big bed. That bed called to his very soul. Blair snorted with laughter “Dramatic much babe”. Shit Tony must have said that last bit aloud.  
  
Before he could offer any protest, Blair threw something at him. What? “It was in Naomi’s journal” Blair offered quietly. What? Tony transferred his gaze from Blair’s uncharacteristically serious expression to the photo he held in his hand. He turned it the right way up and it was a formal police portrait. What? Then he studied the face, those blue eyes. Blue eyes. Why was it always blue eyes with him? Blue eyes were his damn weakness, and those blue eyes were freaking spectacular. Something primal roared to life within him and his response was instinctive. “Ours” he growled, and the sound was on a par with Mooney’s deep-throated snarls when Blair was threatened.

“That’s Detective Lieutenant James Ellison of Cascade Police Department” Blair began, and Tony could hear the smile in his voice “and he’s our Sentinel Tonio.”

Tony dragged his gaze away from the photo to fall into another pair of intense blue eyes. These were smiling with a blinding joy and Tony couldn’t resist. He didn’t care how tired he was. He dragged his Shaman into his arms and plundered those smiling lips. Strong arms held them together and tender hands stroked through his hair until he relaxed enough to be able to release Blair’s lips.

“Blair” he whispered, too full of emotion to speak any more words but Blair just hummed happily at him. Then Tony could feel Blair’s shoulders shaking with amusement. “Damn Tony, he’s going to have to deal with the two of us.” Tony’s smile was tired but genuine. “Then he is a lucky, lucky bastard.”

Tony woke to the smell of fresh coffee, the feel of linen sheets on his bare skin, and the insistent tongue licking at his cock as a hand cupped, stroked and needed at his balls. The sound he made was indescribable as the pleasure intensified when Blair sent his own arousal and adoration through their bond. He arched involuntarily, the orgasm taking him completing by surprise.

Blair hummed with delight and moved up Tony’s body to lay facing the hazy yet satiated luminous green eyes.

Tony thought he tried to speak but the hand that threaded its way through his hair and soothed his scalp calmed the need. He closed his eyes and purred. He heard Blair whisper “Open for me Tonio, open those shields wide my love. Let’s find him together.”

He relaxed utterly into Blair’s arms giving him everything he had asked for. The emotions were overwhelming at first, but Blair kept on speaking, “Focus on me babe, just on me” until the energy dancing behind his eyes was flooded with Blair, only Blair and they swirled together spinning in comforting darkness blocking every other burst of feeling, links to other people or psionic threads that reached for them until only one was left.

The pull towards that one was strong but blocked. The pulse of psionic energy was tantalizingly close, but it was as if it was diverted towards something or someone else. Blair sent the reassurance and certainty that they would all be together soon down through entwined threads, not knowing if it would get through the block but determined to do it anyway.

Tony could feel Blair’s satisfaction. In the joy of recognising that pulse there was finally no room for doubt or self-sacrifice. They all belonged together. This was Tony and Blair’s Sentinel, and Tony would never have to give up his Blair. The burst of happiness inside him, sent the pair of them spinning madly on a frantic Ferris wheel of emotions and energy until they lost the connection but they both broke free laughing.

Tony stared into those beloved blue eyes hovering above him. A wicked grin crossed Blair’s face. Tony warned “Blair, don’t say it..” but he didn’t listen “ Told you so Man” he laughed and poked his tongue out.

In retaliation Tony rolled them, intending to take his revenge in their time-honored fashion, but as his fingers sought out Blair’s most ticklish areas, he made the mistake of looking back into those beautiful blue eyes. They were full of tears. He stopped in shock. “Blair?” he could barely get the name out.

“Mine now, mine” Blair whispered as if he couldn’t believe it was finally happening. Splinters of Tony’s heart broke away even when it swelled with his own happiness.

This, he had done this to Blair. He hadn’t listened to him and he had hurt Blair. He had hurt his Blair. He ignored the fact that he had also hurt himself.

“Blair” he repeated, needing to say something, to apologize, beg for his forgiveness but that sneaky tongue slipped inside his mouth at the first opportunity as the smiling lips devoured his own. “Mmmm” Tony moaned, then made a determined effort to free himself. He had to let Blair know that he was sorry. But the beautiful badass just would not accept it. When he finally gave in and stopped trying to apologize, Blair pulled back with a smirk.

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry” he quoted piously and fluttered his eyelashes.

Tony stared at him with his mouth agape. “You are seriously quoting Love Story at me?” he asked incredulously. Blair began to laugh; deep belly laughs that were irresistible.

When they had both finally calmed down again, Blair moved back towards Tony’s lips with a determined glint in his eyes, but this time Tony held him off.

“Blair, morning breath babe” he complained mildly. Blair snorted with irritation “I’ve already brushed mine lazy butt”. Tony sniggered; Blair was so adorable when he was in morning grump mode. “My morning breath babe” he amended as he yawned and wriggled down into the hand that was still stroking his hair.

Blair just grinned then fluttered his eyelashes “But that’s the only way to wake Sleeping Beauty, or so I have heard” He laughed outright even when the pillow accurately smacked him in the face.

“Come on. I even made sure you could have one cup of coffee before your shower. Shower, breakfast and then we hit the road for the Temple of the Moon.”

Breakfast was a simple but filling fare of fresh bread with butter, jam, cheese, ham and avocado. As they ate Tony asked Blair to brief him on the destination. Then sat back with a smile as Blair’s eyes brightened and he took on his lecture voice.

“Machu Picchu is believed to have been constructed around 1450 under the direction of Inca emperor Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui as a royal mountain estate. Man, there were homes for the Inca elite and the Emperor had his own luxury pad with a private garden, bath and even a toilet for his own use. Locals tipped off Yale Professor Hiram Bingham III in 1911 about it, when he was really searching for a different city. He found it by mistake Dude.”  
  
Blair laughed and continued “Machu Picchu is a spiritually significant site. There are numerous temples, one dedicated to the Summer Solstice, the Torreón, or The Temple of the Sun and one dedicated to the Winter Solstice, the Temple of the Moon. Of course, to make things easier for us, there is a naturally formed cave beneath it.” Blair offered wryly. “And then we have the giant rock!”  
  
“Are we remaking Raiders of the Lost Arc Blair? I want to wear the hat.”  
  
“Tony don’t get me started on that Hollywood nonsense. Grave robbing, illegal artifact removal, damaging archaeological sites…” Blair muttered angrily then scowled as he saw the wicked grin on his Guide’s face. He cleared his throat pointedly and resumed his briefing. “Intihuatana” “Bless you” Tony offered innocently; eyes wide.  
  
Blair cleared his throat and repeated slowly “Intihuatana. The giant rock. A boulder carved into a stairway lies near the cave entrance and the underground chamber likely served a religious function of some form, the stairway leads to a raised platform and the giant rock. It was probably used for astronomical observations.”

“So, we have a temple, a cavern and a giant rock to investigate, whilst surrounded by Tourists. No pressure then.” Tony succinctly summed it up.

But his eyes hadn’t moved from Blair’s animated face. “Fuck, you are hot when you are in Professor mode my sweet Sandcastle. Come here” his voice was pure seduction as he stalked towards his Shaman.

Tony was snapping pictures like crazy of the massive Roca Sagrada, all the while keeping his senses linked with Blair who was asking the local tour guide multiple questions in that chirpy excited voice that made normal people who were stuck on an early morning outing want to drop him off the edge of a cliff. Thus, ensuring that the rest of the tourists gave them a wide berth.

Tony’s amused smirk was hidden by the camera. They could adapt their hunter roles as required. Sometimes Tony was the irritant that kept the flies from buzzing around someplace they shouldn’t be. This time it was Blair’s turn. Besides the hat looked better on Tony.

One of the reason’s Tony was so damned good at undercover were the years of practice with Naomi and Blair. He pulled the sable fedora slightly lower over his eyes even though his Ray ban Wayfarer sunglasses blocked the powerful sunlight perfectly.

He just liked winding Sandy up. Bless him he had not been impressed when Tony had pulled out the Indiana Jones classic. “But come on” he wheedled,” how could I resist Blair? We are going on an archaeological adventure. At least I left the whip in the bedroom.”  
  
Blair burst out with startled laughter and just shook his head at him.

The camera though, that was the latest hunter helpful tool to identify monsters. Like mirrors, photos and videos could capture aspects of the supernatural not otherwise visible. Some ghosts, they discovered, could only be seen through a camera lens.  
  
Shapeshifters would show a retinal flare on film, making their eyes glow eerily. More powerful creatures disrupted the signal, creating bars of static that made them all but impossible to identify. And if necessary, they could blind the bad’uns for a few seconds by using the powerful flash directly into their faces. It had meant that difference between life and death on more than one hunt.

One of them always carried the camera. This time Tony was using the camera, the hat, and the sunglasses to distance himself slightly from the bouncy grad student who just couldn’t shut up.

He offered sympathetic smiles to the disgruntled tourists and gently nudged them away from the route he and Blair had mapped out to get to the Temple of the Moon.

They had studied the maps and just couldn’t see how anything supernatural could be hidden. But Blair was banking on the visiting the Intihuantana stone. Despite Tony’s teasing and distraction, Blair had explained that shamanic legends were clear that when a sensitive person touched their forehead to the Intihuantana stone it would open their vision to the spirit world.  
  
Intihuantana stones were the supremely sacred objects of the Inca people and were systematically searched for and destroyed by the Spaniards. When the Intihuantana stone was broken at an Inca shrine, the Inca believed that the deities of the place died or departed. Blair had told him that the invading Spaniards never found Machu Pichu, even though they suspected its existence, thus the Intihuantana stone and its resident spirits would in theory remain in their original position.  
  
As they neared the Intihuantana stone, thankfully having left their companions to follow the local tourist guide, Tony raised the camera ostensibly to take more pictures but he was more focused on providing cover whilst Blair did his shamanic stuff with the stone. 

He swung round to give Blair the all clear that they had lost the other humans, tourists and guides when the camera picked up bars of static as it was pointed at the stone. Adrenaline surged through Tony’s body as he called out in desperation “Blair no” but he was too late.  
  
Blair had started to call upon his shaman gifts as he reached out to touch the stone, and then he simply disappeared.  
  


Gibbs took his eyes away from the powerful binoculars to ask his Guide what the hell had happened, but she had taken off like a bat out of hell running straight towards Paddington and she took him to the ground before he could also reach out to the stone.

“What the fuck lady? Get off me. I have to get to Blair” he roared the words in his rage as he tried to struggle out from underneath the determined Lt Col but wasn’t having much luck. He was about to blast her with his Guide mojo when he and the Marine were pulled to their feet by a pissed off Sentinel. 

Oh joy, overprotective hidebound navy sentinel cops blocking him from getting to Blair. The day was just getting better and better.

Tony stamped on the guy’s foot in frustration, he had to find Blair, there was no time to waste. The hidebound silver haired sentinel didn’t even blink at the foot stamp, just gripped him harder and yanked him away from the other Guide to growl straight into his face

“Don’t be stupid kid, we don’t know what the hell happened to him and you could go the same way.”

Tony could feel his head nearly explode, god save them all from bonded assholes who had no conception of the supernatural other than the psionic plane and their own god damn spirit animals.

He reigned in the frustrated scream of fear and fury, instead he growled straight into the bastard’s face, his normal mask of playful frat boy blown wide open by the gut-wrenching fear for his Blair.

“That’s the fucking point you moron, I have to find Blair. Let me go” and he swung a powerful gut punch at the Sentinel which made the guy grunt in pained shock. The Sentinel let go of him involuntarily but before he could make it even one step towards the damned stone, that damned Marine Guide used her Guide voice, and everything came to a stop. He shook it off quickly enough but not before the Sentinel reached him again.

Gibbs gave into temptation and slapped the kid around the head. He wasn’t losing someone else to this insanity and he had to stop himself from laughing when he saw the wide-eyed affront on the kid’s pouting face. The slap hadn’t been that hard.

“Calm down and think” he ordered gruffly “where is the Shaman’s disappearing act likely to end up? And don’t think for one minute you are not going to explain this shit once we have him safe.”

“Ever heard of the supernatural Boss?” the kid mocked with a nasty smirk but then answered the first part of the question before Gibbs could lay another head slap on him for being a facetious little brat. “The Temple of the Moon, we were heading for the Temple of the Moon, now get out of my damn way.”

But before he could take off the Marine Colonel barked an order, expecting to be obeyed. “Well let’s get moving people, times a wasting.”

Tony rolled his eyes, avoided the incoming head slap, he was so going to punch the bastard the next time one of those things landed, who the hell did he think he was hitting a Guide, and took off at a run. They had better be good enough to keep up with him because he wasn’t waiting for anyone. His heart pounded to the beat of Blair’s name, as his feet ate up the distance over the grassy covered stone ruins. Blair, Blair, Blair.  
  


Blair opened his eyes after the disorientation of the pull from that damned giant rock and stared up at the decorated stone ceiling. He tried to catch his breath whilst he lay there. Representations of the various stages of the Moon were embedded in a pale shimmering color, as well as strange but oddly familiar spirals.

He groaned slightly as he got to his feet. Hell, that violent displacement had jostled all his bones, as well as his brain cells because it was only when he was upright that he saw the transparent cocoons surrounding him. Most were dark and empty, except for one. To his horror, a sickly version of the psionic blue light pulsed through it, and he could just about make out a humanoid figure encased within.

Realization struck him harder than the pull through the stone. Dear God, it was a Djinn nest, the Temple of the Moon was a Djinn nest. He shook off the weakness as he took off at a run towards the blue cocoon, and his horror grew. The face of James Ellison stared out at him, eyes radiating with that blue light and Blair could feel how he was being drained of the sustaining psionic and life energy. Their Sentinel was slowly dying.

No, fucking no. Blair pushed a hand through the cocoon and rested it on the Sentinel’s bare chest. “Sentinel your Guide needs you. Wake up Sentinel. I am Blair one of your Guides, one of your partners on the path and you will give me what is my due” the Shaman’s voice resonated with power and the blue light flickered for a few seconds until it went out and left the cavern in darkness.

Suddenly his spirit wolf Mooney appeared right next to Blair, and as the animal lent against his legs, Blair’s eyes seemed to adjust to the darkness with ease. 

Blair could feel the Sentinel slowly shake off the spell or whatever the hell was keeping him docile to the damned sustained drain of his life force, but Blair needed to get him out of the cocoon now.

He needed to find Tony and they had to get their Sentinel away from this evil. Then the pair of them would come back and reign karmic justice on this whole horrifying place as they cleared it out.

Righteous possessive fury burned through his soul, reflected in Mooney's vicious but soft snarling.

No one took their Sentinel without repercussions and Blair had the horrible certainty that this had been going on for some time. Maybe fifty years of disappearing Sentinels? How many Guides had been left bereft or even dead because of this nightmare?

Blair tore through that cocoon like it was paper, he wasn’t even thinking about what it was made of, he didn’t care. James Ellison was big, and heavy, almost a dead weight but Blair was surprisingly strong. He and Tony had trained over the years to make sure they were strong enough to deal with the Supernatural.

Blair held one of the Sentinel’s arm over his shoulder, his other arm was placed around Ellison’s waist as he half dragged, half carried the almost insensate Sentinel away from that cocoon.

He was determined to follow the faint light at the other end of the cavern to find an exit. He had tried calling for Tony through their bond but something in this hellish place was blocking their link.

He was going to get the pair of them out come what may. He knew Tony would be on the outside searching for a way in. 

The light seemed to get brighter and the room opened out into another cavern, this time with a huge still pool of water. He lowered the Sentinel to the ground beside it for a few seconds, maybe splashing some water on his face would bring him back to consciousness quicker. That was his mistake.  
  
As soon as he let go of his Sentinel, without any warning he felt himself flung into the water. He popped up, coughing, and spluttering and watched as a tall blonde haired blue skinned female Djinn stalked towards him with predatory menace.

“You dare to take what’s mine little human” the almost amused tone in the cold voice raised goosebumps. He could feel the power pouring off her and swirling round the room like a mini tornado. A Queen Djinn, she had to be a Queen Djinn. There was no other explanation for that level of power. A Queen Djinn. He thought they were only legends. He should have known better.

Before he could even stand up, her tattooed hands were around his throat and she took him back down under the water.


	8. Chapter 7

Tony came to a halt and stared at the open public entrance to the natural cave that housed the Temple of the Moon. His experienced hunter eyes took in every nook and cranny until he caught sight of the faint embedded sigils at the base of the massive stone throne that was in the center of the area. Just to be sure he raised the camera to his eyes and stared at it through the lens, and there were the same bars of static. Yes. He punched the air in triumph then heard his unwelcome companions behind him.

“What the hell DiNozzo, are you just going to stand there taking vacation pictures?” the Sentinel snarled in disbelief. “Forgotten about rescuing your Blair?” he mocked in disgust.

Tony swung round until he was in the Sentinel’s personal space and thrust the camera at him. “My names Paddington, I’ve told you before. Now look through the lens at the stone throne, then again I don’t know why I am bothering since you are too stupid to remember my name” he ordered coldly. His green eyes were as hard as emeralds as he raked them over the overbearing Sentinel.

When the Sentinel just stared at him in stubborn silence, his Guide took the camera with a long-suffering sigh and did as directed. “What the hell?” she asked startled. Tony refused to take his eyes of the Sentinel as he responded to the Guide. “Now look at anything else, then back to the throne again.” He added as an aside before he called out the stubborn ass Navy cop.

“You are not in charge here, in fact you will be a liability, so you do what I say, when I say it, or you can stay here and twiddle your thumbs for all I care” His voice was low and controlled and so certain that it drew the Navy cop up short.

“Jethro, you need to see this” Mac offered worriedly, and as he took the camera, he glanced consideringly at the unshakable young man standing in front of him.

“I think that throne will take us to the same place that Blair went. I think this will lead us to where the Sentinels have been stashed. Before we do this. Do you have anything silver or iron on you?”

“Now that’s an interesting question? And I would really like to know the answer. So, do you have anything silver or iron on you?” Everything seemed to slow at the seductive voice of the compulsively alluring man who stepped out from behind the throne, a gaping black void left in his wake.

Gibbs stared at him in unwilling fascination as the beautiful stranger swayed closer to him. “Mmm aren’t you perfect prey, strong and silent. I bet I can make you scream perfectly. My name is Lash, Sentinel and I am going to take you to my Queen, she has been waiting for you” he purred with malicious satisfaction.

Gibbs smiled slowly at him, his own blue eyes beginning to glow as he moved closer to the beguiling creature. Tony and Mac were locked into place, unable to move at the sound of that voice.

Tony whispered “Djinn”, and for a second the beautiful monster’s focus was split as he looked at Tony. “More Guides to feast upon. I get to drain two Guides, delicious. My Queen isn’t interested in Guides”.

The open threat to his Guide forced its way through the compulsion and Gibbs tried to shake himself free from that voice. He had to protect his Guide, but the Djinn focused on him again, using that voice and turned his back to Tony. Blue light flickered from his eyes and the light from his hands seemed to be linked to Gibbs and getting brighter. “Come with me Sentinel. Come worship your Queen with your life.”

Unadulterated rage surged through Tony’s body at the thought that the evil bastard had already hurt Blair. He found he could move again, his silver knife slipped into his hand as he swung out and sliced through the male Djinn’s arm. At the pain, the glamour receded, until there was only blue skin and swirling spirals covering his face.

The shock of that freed Mac and she aimed a punch at the guy, which seemed to bounce off him. “The only Queen my Sentinel is going to worship is me you skeevy motherfucker. Get your filthy hands off him.”

Gibbs was slowly sinking to his knees, still enthralled by the Djinn linked to him. “I can see why my Queen loves the taste of Sentinel life-force so much” he cruelly mocked as he totally ignored the way the two Guides were struggling to attack him.

Tony reached for his back up piece that was strapped to his ankle, he still had his silver knife in his other hand. He raised his gun and pumped six silver bullets in succession into the Djinn’s chest, which finally seemed to break the link. The Djinn stared down at his chest in pain but there was still a smirk on his face. “No lambs blood” he laughed as blood dripped from his mouth, and that blue light wavered around them. “It won’t take long for me to recover” he boasted.

“Go for the head Marine while he’s incapacitated” Tony shouted at Mac. She didn’t acknowledge his words but tripped the Djinn and sent him to the ground, then with the biggest rock she could find proceeded to crush his skull until all movement stopped and the blue light flickered out. Gibbs was out cold on the ground, and Mac threw away the rock to crawl to his side. 

Tony reloaded the gun with the silver bullets and handed it to Mac. “If you see any blue light at all fire that at it. Make it head shots. Gibbs should recover soon but he will still be weak. I must find Blair. Keep your empathy scanning for anyone coming close. If any humans come near send out Danger Will Robinson vibes. That will be enough to keep them away. If I am not back in an hour, take your Sentinel and make your own way out. Then call a guy named Bobby Singer in Sioux Falls South Dakota and tell him to send hunters to deal with a Queen Djinn. Do not come back yourselves.”

He picked up the fedora, dusted it off and stuck it back on his head, and then took off at a run towards the black void that the Djinn had appeared from.

Mac took a moment to watch as the other Guide disappeared into darkness and then the void closed behind him. She offered up a quick prayer, but the kid seemed to know what he was doing. Did he actually call that bastard a Djinn? She tightened her grip on the small weapon and then send her love and reassurance through the bond to her unconscious Sentinel.


	9. Chapter 8

Ellison could feel the Guide, Blair, he had called himself Blair, fighting for his own life on a cellular level. He could feel the desperate desire to take oxygen into his lungs. He could feel the pressure on his throat closing off the airway as if it were happening to him. He could feel the water flood his nostrils and each time the pressure was loosened on his throat, so his gasping sucked the water into his lungs. He could feel it. God Almighty. He could feel it.  
  
He could hear the water pounding against the Guide’s eardrums. His eyesight zeroed in on the blue lit hands that were wrapped around the Guide’s throat. The blond female Sentinel was holding his head beneath the water in the fountain.

The disparity been the visceral feel of the Guide being murdered to the sight of the sun shining so cheerfully and brightly in that blue sky with no one else around in the University Courtyard was utterly surreal. Something was snarling, enraged, terrified, and Ellison didn’t understand why he couldn’t move, why his limbs were frozen, but his heart was racing with adrenaline, fear, and rage.

Out of the corner of his eyes he could see the predatory pacing of a big black cat. The animal was enraged but it was as if he was stuck in a cage. Somehow Ellison knew that he had to be the one to free him.

The female Sentinel smiled as she pulled her hands away from the now still body, and Ellison felt that strange stillness binding his body snap. His Sentinel roared with rage inside his head, had fought its way to the surface and would not allow him to stay still in the face of danger to a Guide. To his Guide his mind corrected. His Guide. His Guide.

He wrenched himself free from the invisible binding that made his skin crawl in absolute rejection and leapt forward. Suddenly there was no bright sun, no courtyard, no fountain. It was dark, no daylight, the air was odd, musty with bursts of petrichor and the lingering tang of ozone, like a summer storm. Piles of old clothes, and an odd assortment of items like sentinel swords, cameras, flasks, and wallets seemed to be scattered around the room. The scent of death and decay clung to them. But there was no one else amongst the shadows flickering by the blue light and the glow of flaming torches, except for the fake female Sentinel. The snarling roar of the Jaguar reverberated through his mind as it finally broke free from its cage.

Yet the incredible sound had no effect on the strange blonde woman with blue tattoos that seemed to be alive and squirming all over her bare skin, including her face.

She was standing over the body in a shimmering pool lit by flaming torches. That same blue light flickered through the water and surrounded the body of the Guide as he floated face down, dark curls floating around his head. The Jaguar screamed as his own heart seemed to come to a halt.

Ellison didn’t hesitate or stop to find out what the hell was happening. He leapt forward into the pool and swung a punch at the strange woman who was an obstacle directly in his way and blocking his desperate intention to get to the unconscious Guide. He could sense life in the still body, and he was not going to let him die. But the strange woman gripped his fist and stopped him in mid-flight. Her strength was phenomenal.

Panic at not reaching the Guide as his heartbeat weakened made him growl deep in his chest and when he heard the heartbeat stop, he lost all control of his mind, and went into a feral drive. He ripped his hand away from her but before he could go for her throat, the massive black Jaguar leapt at her.

Instinctively he knew the creature was his spirit animal. He hadn’t seen him since his time with the Chopec. The animal had seemingly abandoned him when he returned to Cascade, but the image of that cage kept repeating in his mind. Now he was back with a vengeance. Huge claws raked across her back and she screamed with rage and agony. Satisfaction bloomed at her pain, but he had no time to gloat and finish her off. He could feel the Jaguar’s determination to kill and was happy to let him do it.

Ellison ignored her and reached for the Guide. He lifted him out of the water and lay him gently on his back as he began CPR, desperately compressing his chest, and then breathing for him.

Ellison was so focused on the Guide that he didn’t notice the sudden silence and then the blue tattooed bitch appeared next to them again. She smirked down at the prone still body of the drowned Guide and the Sentinel who was desperately performing CPR.

“Really Jimmy why are you bothering, the Guide is dead, come back to me now” her velvet voice was hypnotic, and Sentinels had never been able to resist it.

She stilled with shock as Ellison ignored her siren call. Only then hearing the almost sub vocal repeat of “my Guide, my Guide” as he continued to work.  
  
No. No. No. She was not going to lose his Sentinel powers. He had been holding out on her if his spirit animal was a black Jaguar, not that he had produced one while she had held him in her thrall. She had been deceived; the little sailor Sentinel had been so weak in his powers she had to find another Sentinel to ensure she had enough psionic energy to power the moon ceremony for her clan. Ellison had presented as a low-level Sentinel with enough sensory gifts to work as a lowly cop, that’s why she had lured that other Sentinel cop to the great cavern. Lash should be dealing with the unwanted Guide and bringing her the spare Sentinel soon.

Instead, her senses had been betrayed by this one. She didn’t know how but Ellison had one of the fiercest predators for a spirit animal. She would not be cheated of her due. She would enjoy draining this worthless scum of the energy that should have been hers by right of conquest.

Her rage clouded her mind enough for that damn Jaguar to take her unawares again. He swiped at the back of her legs and she fell to his claws, rolling onto her back so she could get her hands on the corporeal soul of the Sentinel and fry the little bastard.

Ellison refused to stop, he refused to look behind him at the sound of snarls and shrieks. He knew the Jaguar would protect him as he fought for the guide’s life. His Guide. This was his Guide. The taste in his mouth recognized him. All the cells in his body recognized him.

The moment his Guide, his Blair, his heartbeat started to pick up again, he felt the water being regurgitated and tilted Blair’s head to the side as he also turned his body into the rescue position. He winced at the racking cough and sobs that shook his Guide’s body after the water had drained from his mouth and just as he began to help him into a sitting position, he heard the word No screaming through the air with utter fury.

He turned his head and saw the strange blue woman run towards the two of them. He released Blair and sprung up into a fighting crouch, his Ranger experience and Sentinel instincts combining as his Sentinel utterly focused on destroying her if she came any closer to his Guide.

But before he could engage and rip her god damn head off, an enormous grey wolf appeared and howled his challenge, the scream of the enraged Jaguar joined in, and for a second the strange woman flinched and bent over in pain, her tattooed hands clutching at her ears as blue lightning flickered on her fingers and for the first time actually died out.

Even before she could straighten, the two strange animals took a flying leap at each other and disappeared in a show of light and power that bowled the woman over and over until she came to rest against one to the stone pillars.

Ellison kept most of his senses focused on the dangerous woman as he turned to help Blair. His Blair, his Guide. He smiled giddily at him but there was still a void inside him. What was missing? The start of their bond was still weak but as soon as their spirit animals had collided, he felt all his Guide’s emotions including relief, gratitude, terror and worry about someone else. What?

Blair looked up into his Sentinel’s nearly black eyes. Feral rage whispered through their bond, because of the danger. But Blair knew it wasn’t only because of that. The Sentinel was sensing Blair’s fear for Tony. He was feeling insecure. He didn’t have time to explain properly but he whispered comfortingly, as he patted his cheek “Our Guide will come to us”.

Black eyes blinked with confusion, but the edge of insecurity eased. Just as Ellison opened his mouth to speak, he whipped his head around and stared at the woman as she rose to her feet, stretching her neck and looking down at her hands as the blue light flickered back to life. 

She sighed and relaxed her shoulders, then looked at the Sentinel and Guide staring at her in challenge. She chuckled with amusement. What did she have to worry about? She had over fifty years’ experience of bringing Sentinels to heel, draining them of their powers and simply putting those irritating guides out of her misery by killing them.

Those pestilential spirit animals had disappeared, leaving their precious humans to her mercy. She refused to think about the fact that they were Jaguar and Wolf. It did not matter, the prophesy was a triad, and there was only the two of them. She was going to enthrall the Sentinel first and make him watch as she killed his Guide, slowly. The beauty of her powers was that she could make him relive it for as long as she wanted, and she would, whilst she drained every delicious drop of his psionic energy. He would be on his knees to her for this outrage, then she would leave his carcass for the jungle animals and insects to devour.

She began to walk towards them, smiling mockingly at the way the Sentinel pushed the Guide behind him. Blessed Protector indeed. As if that was going to save the weakling’s life. Maybe she would make the Sentinel kill the Guide himself, make him think he was killing her, and at the moment of death allow him to see the face of his Guide. So many lovely options for revenge.  
  
Her eyebrows rose slightly as the Guide slid fluidly to the side of his Sentinel and looked at her with a vicious smile. His blue eyes were almost as bright as her own.

“Alexis Barnes, as I live and breathe, thanks to my Sentinel” he patted Ellison’s arm before he continued “you are as ugly as only a centuries old Queen Djinn can be sweetheart” he taunted.

She stopped in utter shock. He knew what she was. Then the insult from that insignificant worm overtook her calm determination and she went spiraling into rage. She took a step forward but was stopped by an invisible barrier. She looked down and there was a line of salt halting her progress.

Impossible, utterly impossible. She tried to step through again and screamed with rage. The sound echoed through the cavern and reverberated off the stone walls. 

Her logical mind tried to insist that there was no way that the worm had usable salt on him when she had drowned him, but she still could not move through it and it infuriated her. Blue flames flickered from her clawed fingers.

The Guide smirked at her, “you should know all about mind games Djinny Djinn Djinn” he mocked her openly. “Isn’t that your stock in trade?”

Impossible, he could not reach her mind. She was Djinn, she was Queen, she was immune to Guide tricks no matter how powerful.

It was as if he read her mind. “Aw darling, you were sucking on my Sentinel’s power like a greedy infant, of course I can reach your mind. Let’s also not forget all the other poor Sentinel bastards you have fed on over the years like the damn parasite you are, they are all susceptible to the power of one who has walked the path.”

And the insufferable little worm dared to smile at her. She wanted him dead now.

“I don’t care Shaman. You will not leave here alive.” She snarled as she focused on gathering her power, her eyes lit with that eerie blue and her fingers sparking.

Ellison had been staring at Blair with his mouth open as he stopped the bitch in her tracks. His mind was whirring with all the possibilities. He didn’t know how but if his Guide was that powerful, if he was a Shaman, that made Jim an Alpha. An Alpha Sentinel. How the hell had that happened? Ellison hadn’t been able to use his senses properly since Peru and Incacha.  
  
Suddenly he snorted with laughter at the look on the Djinn’s face. “Are you so sure of that Barnes? I’m apparently an Alpha Sentinel, and my Guide has walked the path”.

The Djinn threw back her head and cruelly laughed right back at him. Oddly, she seemed to relax at his words “You both still don’t have a hope in hell of defeating me Alpha Sentinel and Shaman or not. I have always known who would kill me and it’s not a Jaguar or a Wolf. Not even together. They would have to be part of a Triad with a Raven, and even then, only the Raven itself could stop me. Fools I have had my Djinn kill any Sentinel or Guide born with the Raven spirit animal for years.”

She actually dared to wink at the pair of them as she brought her hands together and the ball of blue light between them grew stronger and larger. Blair sucked in a breath, and Ellison tensed which made her smile grow wider with satisfaction knowing that they were at her mercy. Not that she would give them any.

“Well now, seems that you’ve got a problem because that Raven would be me Sweet Cheeks” an amused voice drawled from behind her.

“Tony” Blair gasped with relief and fear. “Run kid, get out of here” Ellison called frantically “She’s too dangerous”.

The Queen Djinn tilted her head and her eyes flashed as she began to move towards the stranger confidently. Tony tipped back the fedora, so his smiling face was visible.

“Impossible. I ensured that all those with Raven spirits were dead as soon as they were discovered. I have been killing them and there have been no Ravens born in the last thirty years once I learnt of the prophesy.”

She sniffed the air and smirked “But you are a Guide as well. Not as strong or delicious as a Sentinel but you are a pretty one. You will provide me with at least some entertainment, especially when I make you and the Sentinel watch whilst I kill the Shaman.”

For a moment, Tony’s rage was another presence in the room but then he relaxed and just grinned at her. Blair relaxed too. He knew just how dangerous Tony was as a hunter. Tony waited until she had moved closer, standing his ground, his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Then he whistled and called out in amusement.

“Archie love want to meet Royalty?”. There was an intense pressure in the air, and suddenly a large black and grey Raven popped into existence on his shoulder. The way both the Guide and the Raven tilted their heads to study the advancing Queen Djinn was utterly disconcerting.

The Queen paled and stopped for just a moment, then raised her chin mockingly. “The Raven of a Triad I said you fool”.

“Now, don’t you worry none your Majesty, we are a triad. They are all mine darling, big buff and blue eyes might not know it yet, but my Sandy does”. Tony’s drawling nonchalant response seemed to leave the Djinn lost for words.

Another moment of intense pressure that almost sucked the air out of the room and the Jaguar and the Wolf appeared either side of him and the Raven cawed in triumph.

Blue light flickered through the cavern highlighting the swirls of her tattoos and removing the facade of mocking calm as her hands finally changed to long claws in her fury.  
  
Tony pulled his silver throwing knife from his belt and hit her dead in the chest. The light dropped momentarily as she looked down at the knife and then slowly raised her head as she asked mockingly. “Is that the best you can do fool? Don’t you know that without lambs’ blood, it is a mere pin prick? I am a Queen you insignificant worm, you cannot kill me.” The words ended on an unearthly enraged scream.

Ellison found the gun, aimed, and shot in one rolling motion. She was distracted enough by the feel of the bullet entering her body that she missed what the Shaman did next.

Blair grabbed the one of ages old Sentinels sword from the pile of trophies and threw it with fierce determination. Tony’s smile got even wider as he expertly caught the sword from the air and swung round in one fluid motion.  
  
“There can be only one” he quipped with a poor attempt at a Scottish accent.

The sound of the sword cutting through flesh and bone was shockingly loud. They all watched as the Queen’s head rolled to the floor first and then her body crumpled to the ground. Black ichor spurted from the neck, the foul rancid smell nothing like the coppery scent of human blood.  
  
Ellison had risen to his feet, but the overpowering scent dropped him to his knees again. It caught in his throat and he wretched like some rookie cop at his first dead body.

Humiliation stirred in his gut as well as the overwhelming nausea. For the love of God, he was an ex-Ranger and a police detective for major crimes. He had not reacted like that for a long time, not even his sentinel senses had been strong enough to trip him up that way these last few years since he had left the Chopec. What was happening? His senses seemed to be waking up. But then he was distracted by the interaction between the two Guides. 

The taller green-eyed man, what had Blair called him, Tony? He was still standing there, holding onto that sword for grim death but staring down at the headless tattooed body with vicious satisfaction but also a touch of surprise. A faint light still pulsed around him. “Huh, don’t know my own strength. Didn’t think it would be that easy to cut someone’s head off. Thought it took a couple of swings.”  
  
He blinked rapidly and then slowly raised his head. “So that’s why Archie has been playing hide and seek with me since forever. Bitch has been murdering Ravens. But that did the job didn’t it” he quipped into the stunned silence. When he didn’t get a response, he spun round, dripping sword still in his hand.

“Blair babe you okay? “he asked urgently, moving towards the pair of them. Before Blair could answer there was that same strange pop of pressure as when Archie had arrived, but this time it was so much stronger.  
  
Pure blue light getting stronger and stronger, rising from the dead body of the Queen Djinn, and swirling round the room in ever faster circles. It hit Tony first and he went to his ass, but he was oddly cushioned when he hit the ground, losing the sword. It curled around Blair like a hug, and then darted straight at the fallen weakened Sentinel, and hit Ellison square in his chest.  
  
His body jerked and shuddered as the light took him up into the air, arms wide, back bent. It started slowly and then began to rotate the Sentinel in the air faster and faster as if it were trying to sink into his very skin.

Tony and Blair stared at the sight in disbelief as it seemed to last for hours. Tony wondered if he had lost his hearing because despite the incredible light show and the flinging around of Sentinels, there was total silence in the room. A movement to the side distracted him from the creepy floating Sentinel, and he saw Blair reach out to touch the living blue light bulb. Tony grabbed him and held on tight, despite Blair’s mad attempts to get free.

“Jesus Christ Blair, the Highlander quote was supposed to be a joke. What the actual fuck? Be careful you could get caught up in it too. You already have an affinity for it because you are a Shaman. It could take you too” his words were panicked and breathless as he refused to let Blair go.

Blair looked up at him with that stupid faraway shamanic expression, his own blue eyes reflecting in the unearthly light. “What does the blue remind you of Tony?” he did not wait for an answer. “Can’t you feel it Tony, it’s such a rush man. It’s a hit of concentrated psionic energy.”

Tony could see the moment that Blair’s euphoria faded as he realized where that concentrated energy had come from. The Queen Djinn had stolen all it from all those Sentinels. She had drained them dry. 

Blair turned to face him, and that same blue light was sparking from his eyes. Tony gripped his Shaman’s shoulders in a panic, and then felt the light flood his own body until it seemed to be leaking from his very fingertips. The power was intense, but the feeling of the connection shooting through Blair to him and Ellison was incredible. It felt the same as when he and Blair were in the spirit plane but so much stronger.

They watched as the Sentinel finally dropped to the ground and lay there stunned. The blue light blinked out and left them in total darkness. Blair’s voice was whisper quiet as he complained.

“Bloody buggering fuck, where are the torches Tony?”

Blair might not be able to see his darling Guide’s face, but he could feel the fond exasperation over their bond. Tony’s voice was just as quiet “I had a few other things to consider Burgerbun, ya know like chopping a damn Queen Djinn’s head off. I didn’t know we were going to be opening the freaking arc of the covenant. Try your satchel”.

Ellison let out a startled chuckle, his hearing was the first of his senses to return. They must be closer than he thought because he could even hear their breathing and their heartbeats. Such a pretty melody, they harmonized with each other into one perfect sound. He could listen to that beat forever. It was such a comfort; he didn’t realize that he was smiling while he listened to it. He didn’t realize that he still couldn’t see or taste. It was just that perfect sound which filled his world.

Until that sound was interrupted by a hand on either side of his face and a bossy voice demanded that he wake up. “Come on big guy, no zoning, you aren’t allowed to zone, we got things to do”.

He took a deep breath and when Jim opened his eyes this time he was in the jungle, a blue jungle. There was something familiar about it, but his first thought was whether that strange blue light in the Temple of Doom, had affected his eyes. His second thought was that it must have affected his mind because where the hell were all these film references coming from?

He realized that he was seated next to a tree, and on either side opposite him were the two guys from the temple. Jim felt that he should know them because of their heart beats. He stared at them and they nearly took his breath away. Dear God, they were beautiful.   
The shorter more compact one had long chocolate brown riotous curls and concerned vivid blue eyes. The taller one with the athlete’s physique had laughing green eyes framed by sun kissed brown spikey short hair. Ellison had an insane urge to run his fingers through their hair and nestle them against his chest. What?

“You’re beautiful” he muttered aloud as a distraction, not trusting his hands to stay in his lap. Green eyes chuckled with amusement “Which one?” he asked “Both of you” Jim blurted out as he clenched his fists. He wanted to touch so badly. What the hell was wrong with him?

Blue eyes took one of those clenched fists gently into his own hand. “We don’t have a lot of time here, and we need to stabilize our initial bond before we go back so that your senses can level out, but do you know what happened?” he asked calmly. Jim shook his head then winced. His senses were going haywire. Everything was too much but being book ended by the two guides seemed to give him some peace. It was so weird that they would not stop smiling at him.

“You were abducted by a Big Bad who was draining your psionic energy by playing video games in your head. Blair and I flew, caught a tourist bus and then hiked to the rescue. You saved Blair from a watery death. I cut off Queen Bitch’s head. Then you did the best cosplay of Highlander the movie I have ever seen in my life. You absorbed fifty years’ worth of stolen Sentinel mojo so you have upgraded to the most powerful Sentinel on the damn planet. There can be only one” Green eyes chirped happily.

Jim blinked at him. Blue eyes dropped his hand and Jim wanted to snatch it back. But he was fascinated by their interaction. Blue eyes turned his head slowly to stare at his partner open mouthed then dropped his head into his hands, whilst he seemed to be muffling a lot of swear words. Green eyes sniggered.

“Hey Babe, I just gave him the shortened movie highlights instead of the lengthy dusty academic tome” Green eyes shrugged with a cheeky grin. He nudged blue eyes and then turned to wink at Jim.

Tony literally could not stop grinning. Happiness was buzzing in his blood stream like powerful champagne as he stared at the pair of them. His Guide and his Sentinel together.

Jim’s eyes tracked from one to the other in helpless fascination. He wasn’t even sure what to say to that as the memories started to filter back into his brain.

Blair finally raised his head and stared at Jim instead of his infuriating Guide. “What he forgot to say was that we are your Guides” Blair offered sardonically but they could all feel his amusement.

“Guides? As in plural?” Jim asked in shock. “Dude, you are so powerful you need the pair of us. Sides you chose one you get the two of us. Buy one get the second one free. No way are we splitting up now, so you don’t get a choice. We are a done deal. So, you either accept the two of us or reject the two of us. You can’t just pick one you like the best”.

Tony’s insecurities were perfectly outlined in that last sentence. And Blair took his hand and raised it to his lips.

Jim just watched the pair of them. “Okay, do you actually want to introduce yourselves to me or should I just call you Chief and Sport?” he asked with a touch of his normal grumpy bite.

Blair frowned slightly, but Tony’s grin just got wider. “Get the feeling Boss man that you are going to call us those anyway. I’m Tony Paddington, this is Blair Sandburg. Now we need to wrap this up until we can speak properly because we have to get back and get out of that hellhole”.

As soon as Paddington finished speaking, Jim’s black Jaguar suddenly materialized right next to the big Sentinel. It was the biggest Jaguar Tony and Blair had ever seen, and it roared with triumph.

The sound reverberated through the blue jungle, it seemed to shake even the trees, and it buffeted the two Guides back on their asses again. “Rude pretty Kitty” Tony grumbled as he shoved himself to an upright position.  
The big cat slowly turned its head until green eyes met green eyes and he stalked forward towards the two guides. Tony’s grin got wider the nearer the animal came whilst Blair was staring at him in utter fascination. “Such beautiful marking. Look at those rosettes” he muttered to himself as the animal strolled between the pair of them rubbing his head against their shoulders and then let out a sound like a defective motorized saw stuck going forward only. Blair snorted his amusement. “Cheeky bugger just marked us as his territory.”

They were so distracted by the playful big cat that they almost didn’t notice the arrival of a huge grey Wolf with the black and grey Raven riding its shoulder again right next to Ellison. The two spirit animals stared at the Jaguar for a second but then they seemed more interested in the stunned silent sentinel. A large tongue licked the side of Ellison’s face and then the Wolf sat on its haunches. Ellison could swear the animal was smirking at him but then he was distracted as the huge Raven switched to his shoulder and began grooming Jim’s hair.

Tony was intent on scratching behind the big cat’s ears and crooning at it “Such a pretty kitty aren’t you baby”, and the animal was lapping it up. “What’s your name Baby?” and before he could continue, Ellison barked “You aren’t calling him Baby after that Gary Grant film.”  
  
Tony looked up as he slowly recited “Bringing up Baby a 1938 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, and starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It is ranked at 88th on the American Film Institute's 100 greatest American films of all-time list.”  
  
The other two could see the proverbial penny drop as he grinned smugly at them. “Nah, his names not Baby, its Hepburn. Isn’t that right pretty kitty?” The cat flopped down half on top of him and made a noise of intense satisfaction as Tony continued to stroke him.

Before Ellison could open his mouth Blair just shook his head at him. “Don’t even. Tony’s always right when it comes to the naming of a spirit animal.”

The Sentinel made a hand gesture that incorporated all the spirit animals and his own utter bewilderment. “What the hell?”

Blair could relate. He was going to have to speak with Incacha soon but for the meantime, he simply answered their Sentinel’s vague question. “They are claiming us before they claim each other”  
  
Blair hesitated for a second. Damn it, it was easy to see that the Sentinel preferred his information straight to the point and unvarnished. He lifted his chin “This has to be done now because we need to stabilize your senses. The only way we can do that and be able to deal with the shit show on the physical plane is to allow this temporary bond. I swear to you that you can still back out of it before any bond becomes permanent. We will not force you to stay as our Sentinel after we have helped you to deal with your…” he paused for a few seconds as he sent an exasperated glance at Tony “your upgrade”.

Tony looked up from Hepburn, one hand still buried in his fur, and winked.  
  
Both Guides stared at the Sentinel in shock as they felt the wave of anger and fear flood through him. “You want to leave me?” he snarled.  
  
Tony unceremoniously pushed off the big cat and leapt to his feet at the same time as Blair. “That’s not what Blair said big guy” he reassured as he landed in the guy’s lap seconds before Blair had his hands on the Sentinel’s face. “No, no, no Man, we won’t leave you. Your ours. Ours. But we are not going to take away your right to choose, to consent to a full bonding. We have to get you to a stable state and work out what happens after.”

Strong arms pulled them both close as the word “Mine” was repeated over and over until Ellison finally calmed down again.

Something shivered in the air, intense and inevitable. Blair was the only one who noticed the reaction of the spirit animals. Tony had his head buried against Ellison’s throat and Ellison was breathing in the scent of his hair whilst nuzzling against Blair’s hands.

He saw as they moved nearer to each other. “Guys, brace for impact” were the only words that he managed to get out before the three animals charged at each other. There was a blinding blast of light as they all merged into one and disappeared. 

Psionic energy rippled through nerve ends and empathic pathways linking them together, until awareness fled.  
  


Tony grumbled as his hair was tugged gently and continuously. “Stop that. Stop it.” There was no answer though a flash of smug amusement made him open his eyes “Blair…” he began to warn but found himself staring at the upside-down beak and bright eyes of the Raven who was tugging at his fringe. He blinked. His spirit animal could project emotions at him now. Cool.  
  
“Archie” he murmured, and the Raven let go of his hair after one last tug. Tony wanted to laugh. Then his eyes fell on his still sleeping Sentinel and Shaman. It was amazing. He could feel them. He could feel their emotions. It was so strong. What the hell was it going to be like when they fully bonded? He smiled helplessly and for a weak moment he could feel the prickling behind his eyes.  
  
He didn’t know how he had got so lucky, but he would be damned before he lost either of them. He had left Philadelphia looking for answers, lost and uncertain about his future. Now his future was there on the ground next to him. He took a deep breath to try to center himself.  
  
Tony knew they didn’t have a lot of time left. They needed to get out of the temple as soon as possible. The initial bond forged through the joining of their spirit animals would allow Ellison to deal temporarily with the amount of energy he had absorbed. They didn’t know how this was going to ultimately affect their Sentinel, but his senses had already started to spike. There was bound to be unpredictable repercussions because of the strength of the energy.  
  
Blair had already instinctively instigated a sensory buffer for Ellison, weaving it through with Tony’s newly released Alpha Guide mojo. Tony could feel how strong it was even with Blair taking a nap. He used his own gifts to run a quick check on the pair of them and he relaxed somewhat when there was no deterioration. But they needed to get their Sentinel to a safe place soon so they could work properly with him to stabilize his baseline and then finalize their bonding. If that was what the guy really wanted. No way would either Blair or himself take Ellison’s consent for granted in his current state. Even if he had nearly gone feral at the thought of them leaving him. Ellison wasn’t rational enough to consent to a lifetime’s commitment despite his reaction. Even if inside he was screaming at the possibility, and he knew Blair was hurting at the mere thought of it too, the temporary bonding on the spirit plane could be removed if that was the Sentinel’s ultimate decision. Now he was on an even keel, they had to deal with the damn implications of the supernatural bullshit. 

Like salting and burning the Djinns bodies, cleaning out that damn nest and destroying those damn cocoons. Finally making sure that there weren’t any creatures or victims left.

He knew Blair would murder him if he even suggested it, but Tony wanted to blow the place up in its entirety. Evil was steeped into the hidden cavern and he didn’t want any more Djinn or any other supernatural big bad finding their way back there.  
  
Blair could perform a purification ritual which would dissuade the monsters for a while. Perhaps they could persuade Singer to set up an annual hunter check on the place to make sure that it hadn’t been re-infested. The old bastard owed them because of all that shit with Naomi.  
  
Tony winced when he remembered that Navy cop Sentinel and his bad ass marine Guide. He didn’t look forward to explaining the Supernatural to that smirking asshole of a Federal Agent, but he knew damn well Gibbs would demand answers. Especially if, as Tony suspected that Sentinel psionic dump had also impacted his grumpy ass. Not forgetting that bad ass Marine Guide would also be demanding answers. He wasn’t sure which one would be worse.  
  
Tony made an executive decision as the only one awake. Blair could do the talking

“Who the hell is Archie?” his own Sentinel grunted charmingly as he opened his eyes and began to sit up. Blair groaned as he rolled to the side and blinked owlishly as he considered Ellison’s words. He raised one eyebrow as understanding dawned. _“_ Seriously?Tony seriously, tell me that you didn’t name your spirit animal after the Raven who hated Rod Taylor when he was filming The Birds?”

Ellison looked from one to the other of his Guides faces and then he began to laugh.


	10. Chapter 9

“Do you trust us Sentinel?” The whispered words caressed Jim’s ears and send a shiver down his spine. “Do you trust us Sentinel?” Warmth breath tickled the back of his neck as the words were echoed softly by a second voice. “Always and forever” he breathed out. His voice so husky it almost hurt.

“Keep your eyes closed and stay very still Sentinel”. One beloved voice had whispered as he entered their prepared space. He knew where they were, he could hear their heartbeats, the soft inhalation of air into their lungs and the slow exhalation of that breath out of their bodies as they strove to calm the excitement racing through their bodies.

He stood in the darkened room, his eyes obediently closed, his hands clenched to his side to resist the urge to reach out and touch. Christ, he wanted to touch. He hungered to touch. Arousal already a low-level burn in his blood.

One kiss feathered his eyelid, lips lingered against his eyelashes, a curl of hair brushed his temple. He could feel the silk of each strand and he wanted to bury his hands in it. But he didn’t move.

Another kiss at the corner of his mouth, the tip of a soft tongue flickering lightly over his bottom lip. He wanted to open his mouth and taste. But he didn’t move.

“Breathe us in Sentinel” the first voice whispered, deep and low like the rumbling of a Wolf. He took a deep breath and hints of the earth and the sky swirled through his senses. Red cedar, crisp mountain air, sand and sea salt whispered across his senses. The bite of rain and snow, the clear tang of petrichor and the warmth of sandalwood stroked across the bond until they all combined, and he knew that scent was imprinted on his soul for ever. Delicious, comforting, his heart and home, he felt himself stir in reaction. His muscles tensed as he forced himself to remain still.

“No, No, No, Sentinel, relax, there’s only one muscle in your body that’s going to stay hard” the second voice teased with a chuckle as loving hands began to run lightly over his shoulders, down his back, slowly, so slowly down to his ass, which was soothingly rubbed, and then slowly once again down the back of his thighs and legs. Those hands almost distracted from the fingers that were slowly undoing the buttons of his silk shirt. Each button was edged gently out of its hole, fingers caressed the bared skin between each button until the Sentinel could feel air float over the front of his chest.  
Those fingers smoothed up the sides of the open shirt until they hovered over his chest, still covered by the silk, and the lightest pressure of those wicked fingers circled his nipples until he could feel them rise beneath the delicate material.

“Breathe us in Sentinel” the first voice repeated as his fingers continued to torment those sensitive nubs. Then the shirt was removed from his shoulders and the fingers spread out against the bare chest until the Sentinel could feel the hand print heat up until it was burning into his skin.

He drew a deep breath and released it slowly, the hands on his chest rising until they were parallel to the hands on his back. He was caught between the two of them. Suspended. Branded. Safe.

“Do you trust us Sentinel?” The two beloved voices were silk wrapped in velvet that smoothed through his skin to his soul and stiffened his cock.

“We’ll take care of you love, you just have to relax enough to enjoy it and let us in.”

“Hear us Sentinel” both voices harmonized as beautifully as their heart beats, a perfect counterpoint to each other, their combined music so close to his ears that he didn’t know which way to turn. But he didn’t move. He could feel air filling his lungs and leaving them, feel his breathing increase in time to the hypnotizing sound of their voices. 

Soft fine lined lips slowly kissed the nape of his neck and plumper lips covered his own until beautiful words were whispered and repeated back after each kiss. A kiss for each word, in each voice.

“Our Jaguar you have set us all free”.

Jim wasn’t sure he could stand any more, his felt weightless, surrounded by love. Blair’s voice took over the next line and Tony’s mouth worshipped his skin.

“His stride is wildernesses of Freedom”.

Blair’s mouth devoured his as Tony finished the last two lines, mellifluous and mellow.

“The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel,

Over the cage floor the horizon comes”

Ellison was so invested in listening to those beautiful voices that the slow gentle removal of his clothes almost went unnoticed until multiple hands were stroking and soothing his bare skin.

“You have given us our freedom Sentinel” purred one voice against his throat, as the second whispered against lips “You are our horizon and our blessed cage Sentinel”.

Time and sensation slowed as he was worshiped by two determined aroused Guides who were feeding him their own loving lust through the slowly growing bond. He had almost lost the ability to be verbal at this point, his senses were saturated with his Guides, their sounds, their scent, their touch. He had only one sense left to imprint, taste and his mouth watered with anticipation. His Guides were creative and ingenious, but if he didn’t get to taste them soon, he would go out of his damn mind.

“Taste us Sentinel” the words were murmured almost as soon as he had the thought. Those kisses returned to his eager lips. Gentle hands turning his head from one mouth to another.

“Do you trust us Sentinel?” his Guides low voices were indistinguishable now. If he concentrated enough, he could separate them, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to move. He just wanted to feel. Because this was them. Their gift to him. A way for their Triad bond to bloom completely in the fertile soil of their love for each other. Their Triad bond came first. Then he would bond with each of his guides individually. He wanted them to claim him in as many ways as possible. He was theirs and they were his. There would be no way to separate them again. He would rip apart the first asshole who tried.

“Do you trust us Sentinel?” The question was repeated gently, persistently and Ellison brought his mind back to the present, he gave a moan of agreement, “Always, forever” and he felt the lips caressing his body smile in pleasure and satisfaction.

He was slowly and safely moved forwards, hands both on his hips and holding his own but greedy lips plundered his skin. He had no hesitation in trusting those hands and he followed obediently.

He heard Blair’s distinctive chuckle as he felt his Sentinel’s desperation feed its way through the strengthening bond. Then he felt himself being laid down on cool linen sheets, his arms raised above his head, and his hands positioned to hold on to each other and his legs spread so gently, until he felt one of his Guides kneel between his open thighs.

“Do you trust us Sentinel” the loving familiar words relaxed any further tension in his body. He trusted them with everything, his soul, his heart, and his body. “Always and Forever” he responded instantly. Swift and then lingering kisses on his thighs and his shoulders rewarded that trust.

“Let the horizon come our Jaguar” he couldn’t tell who murmured the words anymore because he knew it came from the two of them.

The thigh kisses moved up and the shoulder kisses moved down, until one mouth suckled at the root of a rock-hard cock, and the other suckled at a sensitive nipple. It felt glorious.

“Taste and touch Babe, we are going to glut ourselves on you” the soft words sounded like Tony and he was deadly serious. Their Tony, their practical joker, their investigator, their people person, the charismatic heart of their triad. Blair was their watcher, their teacher and student, their strength, and their way. Their joyful soul. And he was their grateful Sentinel, their twice blessed protector, their warrior. He was theirs.

Lube was being squeezed from a tube. It was unscented but it sounded luxurious as it was slowly poured on two sets of fingers. Fingers proceeded to stroke at his hole, softly so softly, spreading the lube, running over his rim until he arched his back, not knowing what to do with himself. Then his cock was sealed into a wet warmth, a tongue, slowly savouring his length. Love and lust burned through his body like a forest fire. No words. He had no words. His tongue couldn’t form anything coherent. Instead, there was a litany of pleading begging sounds. He wanted so badly to come. He wanted so badly not to come. Just a little longer. Hold off just a little longer.  
He wouldn’t disappoint his Guides. He wouldn’t. The words left his lips. Moaning in desperation.  
Soft lips were suddenly near his ear, nuzzling at him comfortingly. “You could never disappoint us darling. Trust us Sentinel, trust us”.  
The love in the voice soothed the fiery painful pleasure until his body calmed from the desperate need.  
He opened his senses again and he could hear lube covered fingers stroking skin not his own. God that was hot, images of his Guides stroking and preparing each other over his body flitted through his mind. When those fingers breeched that other body, he reacted to it, arching his own body, and moaning in harmony as the sensations were amplified over the bond.  
The first finger to breach him went almost unnoticed because it felt like an echo of his previous reaction. Instinctively the sensations were fed back and forth over the bond, enhancing the pleasure, and leavening the faint discomfort lurking in the background.  
One finger became two, slowly, adoringly, patiently stroking and widening until two fingers became three. Three fingers that were unmoving whilst three throats drew in deep shuddering breaths.

“Do you trust us Sentinel?” a loving voice asked just as the fingers inside him curved and relentlessly stroked over his prostrate and a warm mouth teased at his cock before engulfing it. Whiteness splintered the soothing dark behind his eyelids as intense pleasure flooded his body, locking his muscles and he cried out as he came.

“Do you trust us Sentinel?” a panting voice questioned as his senses slowly returned. “Always and forever” the words were slurred but heart felt. “Open for us Jim, open those shields wide our Sentinel. Come find us.” Blair’s words were firm and insistent “Find us darling” Tony pleaded.

The emotions were overwhelming at first, but his Guides kept speaking, “Focus on us babe, just on us” until the energy dancing behind his eyes was flooded with them, his guides, with Blair and Tony and they swirled together spinning in the comforting darkness blocking every psionic thread until only the ones linking him to his Guides were left. He felt them, felt everything they felt, separate yet together as the pulse of psionic energy entwined them all together forever. This time it was a burst of rainbow colored light that sent him spinning into the darkness.

  
Soothing hands stroking his bare returned him to awareness as one of his guides slid up his body until he hovered above him, skin tantalizingly just out of reach except for the hungry tongue licking at his lips until he opened his mouth. The kiss that followed devoured him with devotion, he didn’t even notice the tears that slid down his own cheeks because the feedback loop of arousal and adoration from both his guides intensified until he could feel his cock harden again. Sweet merciful God, the pair of them would be the death of him. He desperately wanted to open his eyes, but it wasn’t time for that yet.  
  
Silken bare skin met his, as long muscular legs enclosed his hips, until a cock deliberately brushed against his own. He jerked involuntarily but forced himself to remain pliant as his own legs were gently positioned until a bare ass was resting against the front of his thighs.  
The musky scent of pre-cum hit him before the tiny drops of burning liquid lust met the sensitive skin below his navel and a slippery hand took firm hold of his cock, teasing touches ensuring his cock was covered in the Sentinel safe lube. The pleasure was verging on pain it was so intense. Suddenly he could see exactly what was happening, yet his eyes were still closed. He was using his hearing to piggyback his sight. An impossibility for non-bonded sentinels. He sent smug satisfaction through the bond and heard both his guides give a startled laugh. Tony’s gloriously naked body was poised above his cock and about to lower himself down. Blair leant against Tony’s back and Jim’s open exposed thighs. His hand was tugging gently at Tony’s cock whilst his hard pulsing curved cock rested against Jim’s taint.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He groaned. Blair sniggered and his cock twitched closer to his open desperate ass hole. “That’s right big guy, a fuck for each of us.” Tony snorted with laughter. But he didn’t return to that kiss despite Ellison’s seeking lips. Instead, more lube was applied to his fingers and he began to cover Ellison’s cock generously with lube slowly and gently in time with Blair covering his own cock in lube.

Finally those wicked fingers stopped and the Guides asked for the last time “Do you trust us Sentinel?” Ellison wasn’t sure he had a voice left but he responded as before “Always and forever.”

Then Blair slid into him with one firm thrust as Tony slid down on him taking him into his own body.

Any last barriers to their bonding fell away. They burned with pleasure. They felt each other’s movements as their own. Loved, worshiped. One.  
  


Jim held both of his guides close, Blair’s head was over his heart and Tony was tucked under his chin. His fingers idly played with Blair’s curls and Tony’s perfect ear. They were both just begin to rouse from their deep satiated sleep. Jim hadn’t slept at all. He had to protect his guides.

Rationally he knew Incacha and the tribe were watching over them and would warn of any danger. He had come to trust the Shaman after the 6 weeks they had spent in the Chopec village, learning to deal with his “upgrade”.

Blair had wanted Incacha’s advice on how to deal with the unexpected power boost from the Queen Djinn and they all wanted to avoid the poking, prodding, testing and general disapproving nosiness they knew was waiting for them when they got back to the states. Gibbs and Mac had stayed for the first two weeks before heading back. Tony had sniggered openly at the thought of anyone stupid enough to try to question Gibbs. Mac had winked at him.

They had trained with Incacha and his Guardian. Jim learning his limits, Blair and Tony learning how to deal with them when he blithely sailed right passed said limits. They had no privacy and were not keen to provide any entertainment to the tribe, so the longing and lust gradually built until it was ready to explode.

They had decided to finalise their bond before going back to Cascade. Jim had wanted to make sure that there was no way anyone could take his Guides away from him, well not without courting war with someone who was likely to be the strongest Sentinel on the damn planet, and his Second, the new and improved Sentinel Jethro Gibbs. 

Tony moaned softly as he stirred, and Blair’s yawn nearly dislocated his jaw. Ellison smirked as he slid out from under them, ignoring the grumbled protests. Tony and Blair moved together without conscious thought, possessively clinging to each other. Then strong hands threaded through their hair and their heads were turned upwards in unison. Sleepy green and startled blue eyes blinked open.

“Do you trust me my Guides”. The Sentinel’s deep voice purred at them as he stared down at their beloved faces.


	11. Epilogue

James Ellison glared at his Shaman in disbelief. “Tony, Tony is my favorite. Definitely.”  
  
Blair just offered him that damn sunshine smile and agreed happily “Tony has always been my favorite too”.

As Blair reached for the handle to get out of vehicle, he reminded his Sentinel “Don’t forget the shovel big guy. I’ve got the salt and the matches”.

Jim slowly got out of the truck shaking his head. The headlights picked out the entrance gate to the Old North Cemetery, in Cascade and the shadowy menacing figures of the monuments in the background.  
  
Jim growled. “That’s a damn cemetery, a cemetery. Its ass o’clock in the morning and we are going into a cemetery. Have you lost your mind Chief?”.

Blair sent him the same sunny smile once again, “Well we can’t do a salt and burn in the daylight with witnesses Sentinel. They would call the cops”. He offered as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

“For the love of God Blair, I am a cop” Ellison sputtered with incredulity. Blair raised his eyebrows with an innocent expression but there was a wicked gleam in his eyes as he responded, “And your point is?”

Ellison could feel the headache building across his temples, until the soothing empathic touch of his Shaman dissipated it effortlessly. He tried again “Blair, it’s illegal to just dig bodies up and then set them on fire. I am an Officer of the Law and I am supposed to uphold it”.

Blair tilted his head “Need I remind you Sentinel that you are the one who saw the ghost of Isaac Merchant in that portrait at the Auction House? I bought the horrible thing so we can take it to the guy’s grave and do a complete salt and burn to send the dangerous spirit on its way.”  
  
Then Blair laughed at him, “Come on Sentinel, we’ve got some protecting to do, and just think about Tony’s reaction when he gets to see you all sweaty and dirty. Our Tonio can get really creative in finding ways to make us even dirtier.”  
  
The leer accompanying the words flooded the Sentinel with lust. The thought of Tony’s creativity with his fingers and that pretty mouth made Jim harden uncomfortably. Damn his little neo-hippie witch-doctor knew how to distract him.  
  
Until Blair put paid to that when he lost the sly smile and offered gently, “Jim man, if this makes you uncomfortable, go back to Sweetheart and wait for me. I can take care of it. It’s all part of a hunter’s job description”.

Ellison eyes flashed with fury as the Sentinel in him growled at the thought of Blair blithely walking into danger without him. No way was that happening.

The big guy swung the shovel over his shoulder with no effort and jerked his head at his Shaman, who nodded and pulled the wrapped portrait out of the back of the truck. Jim grabbed that off him with his other hand and nudged his Shaman towards the dark and foreboding entrance.   
  
Blair had managed to hold in his amusement though he was quite sure that his Sentinel knew, by the way he was biting his lip but then it was game over when he heard his Sentinel suddenly demand in outrage “Hey why am I the only one getting dirty and sweaty?” then the big guy swore under his breath.

“Tony, Tony is my favorite definitely”.

Blair’s laughter rang through the silent dark monuments and gravestones with the beautiful purity of a bell.

Gibbs listened with one ear as Tony answered the cell. Damn transfer paperwork. Tony and Blair could take care of it in their new unit. They had sweet talked both the GI and NCIS into founding it after all, even allowing it to be situated in Cascade because no-one wanted to piss off the most powerful Sentinel they had ever registered.  
  
The fact that Gibbs and his Guide had also received an upgrade to their levels in the aftermath they hadn’t seen fit to mention yet. He was not going to go through the same barrage of testing that had hit the trio. They had passed it off as the Sentinel and Guide need to remain with their spontaneously formed Pride. And Ellison had backed them up. No one wanted to argue with the guy these days.

How the hell Blair and Tony had got the Initiative to agree to an independent investigative unit to ostensibly deal with Sentinel and Guide crimes, but with special focus on those impacted by the supernatural he didn’t know. But he had a sneaking suspicion that fifty years of disappearing Sentinels and murdered Raven Guides might have had something to do with it. Especially with Edward Sheffield in charge of the Guide Initiative.

Ellison was as bad as Gibbs with paperwork, but his Guides indulged him. Mac would kick his ass into tomorrow if he attempted to ask her. She was too busy working on her own paperwork on the desk beside his. No problem, he would just make sure that Paddington did his as well as his own.

If he never had another form to fill in for the rest of his life, he would die a happy man. Na scratch that, he was already a happy man, he did not want to jinx it by even thinking about dying. In the last few months, he’d found out exactly how powerful stupid ill-thought-out words could be and he’d watch that damn fool fallen angel Lucifer in a tutu ice dance in Hell before he lost that happiness again.

The changed tone in his new partner’s voice made him look up and focus his senses. Tony’s heart rate had picked up and that familiar scent combination of wary excitement and intrigue hit his nose. Two choices, it was either Blair with his latest insane suggestion for a healthy diet and threesome tantric sex, normally at the same time, and the little shit seemed to know when Gibbs was available to listen in when he called, or it was something to do with the Supernatural.

“I need more details on the guy Bobby” Well crap. That answered that. He thought longingly of the possibility of tantric sex with his own Guide for a few seconds, and Mac raised her head in surprised interest as she felt the arousal leak through their bond. Then Tony had ended the call and turned to face him. Green eyes lit from within, as that quick brain started to work on the case.

“We got a live one MacGibbs” Tony grinned at the scowl Gibbs offered him and winked at an amused Mac. She knew Gibbs found Tony’s nicknames funny, and so did Tony because Guide mojo man.  
  
Tony was determined to get the stern Sentinel to crack a smile and Gibbs was equally determined not to give him the satisfaction.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow in a silent prompt for Paddington to get on with it “Marine Vet Boss, widowed, two adult sons, went on a hunting trip to Jericho California. Not been in contact for three weeks”.

Gibbs picked his own phone up. “Let Blair know we’ll be out of town for a few days, I’ll brief Ellison, he can stay in the office and talk care of the kid. What’s the guy’s name?”

“Winchester. John Winchester”.


End file.
